Beastly Movie Review: What Love really is

After a year of delay, I got to see Beastly today. I've been a fan of Beauty and the Beast stories since I can remember. Out of all the fairy tales, I thought Beauty and the Beast was the most realistic. Why? Because they actually get to know each other before they decided they were in love. Of course everyone knows the message is "don't judge a book by its cover" but I think there's more to the story than that. Especially in the case of Beastly where Kyle Kingsbury is turned into a beast as punishment for his vain and superficial attitude toward appearances. This was a book first, so I must compare the two a bit. In the book, Kyle insults a witch and acts like everyone is beneath him. The same is true in the film. The difference in the film involves the reason why Kendra, the witch decides to give Kyle a second chance. In the book Kyle tells his maid to purchase an orchid and instead the maid buys a white rose. Lindy, a girl working at the dance watches as Kyle's vain girlfriend Sloane throws a fit about it. For some reason Kyle picks up the rose and gives it to Lindy, because she stares at it longingly. In the movie, Lindy tells Kyle what his maid also told him about the white rose. It means, "I'm worthy of you". This was a nice touch to add to the depth of the film's message. It is about real love, not vanity. My only complaint about the movie is that Kyle changes his name to Hunter while in the book after he transforms, he changes his name to Adrian which means "dark one". Other than that, the movie followed Kyle's growth in character beautifully. He is even more involved with Lindy and actually knows who she is before giving her the flower. It's rare when a movie goes into depth about true meaning in life. Beastly is not just about the fact that looks aren't what makes a person, it's also a message that real love cannot be bought or even happen out of the blue. It is much more than that, which I believe is the true value of this story. I give Beastly five out of five white roses, and I will definitely go see it again.