We’ve all had those moments in our lives when our faith in something, or maybe even someone, is tested. It may not be to the extreme’s of religion, but it’s a moment everyone will have been through at some point in their lives and that’s why we’re able to resonate so easily with new comedy, Paradise.
Paradise follows the story of Lamb (Julianne Hough), a small-town more innocent than innocence itself 21 year old who has been brought up in the same community her whole life. Things changed for Lamb when she was in a near fatal plane crash that killed her fiancé and covered the majority of her body in severe burns. This is where we join Lamb, after her crash and angry at the world.
A life-long Christian, Lamb is set to give an inspirational speech at her church, but bitter and confused, she’s renounces God and her religion and makes her thoughts perfectly clear – much to the dismay of her parents and disgust of the community. With that, Lamb takes off to see the world, she wants to go to the one place that is the complete opposite to her ‘everyone knows everyone and nobody puts a foot wrong’ small-town. This takes her to the City of Sin itself, Las Vegas. There Lamb meets the feisty and opinionated Loray (Octavia Spencer) and charming silver-tongued lothario William (Russell Brand). This starts a interesting night for Lamb, who takes a somewhat unusual spiritual journey into the night, experiencing brand new things and getting a brand new take on life and what she truly believes in.
Paradise really is quite a pleasant surprise. While the film seems like it will just be one of your every day throw away films where the lead ultimately gets the guy and they live happily ever after, it becomes apparent Paradise won’t succumb to this easy, predictable arch. The story only really gets going about 20 minutes in once Lamb meets the rest of our key players, before then we have a few laughs and we’re pretty much up to speed with everything we need to know. Hough and Brands first meeting seems a little wooden, almost like director Diablo Cody didn’t allow Brand to play to his strengths as the well spoken witty British charmer, a role he plays so naturally and well. This in part could be down to Cody making her directorial debut, having previous writing credits for Juno and Jennifers Body. Once this whole awkward first meeting is out the way, all the pieces begin to fit together and the story unravels and the actors get comfortable in their roles.
Julianne Hough is excellent and thoroughly believable in her oh-so innocent ‘hasn’t seen the world and when she does she’s complete shocked by it’ small-town girl role. Brand is ever consistent with the funny one liners and commanding presence and Octavia Spencer gives a strong performance in her unconventional character that worked perfectly along side Lamb’s naivety.
Paradise ultimately has a warm message about the world, that you might, on a daily basis go through pain and suffering and doubt, but if you look around you’ll see so is everyone, we’re in it together and maybe by giving each other a helping hand it might make it a bit easier. It’s about getting through the tough times, the self-doubt and re-discovering who you are, and what you believe in. It’s quite a lovely message from the young director who also wrote the film, which is supported wonderfully by the fine performances of the film’s 3 leads in Hough, Brand and Spencer.
Rating: A beautiful message about life and identity (6/10).
Paradise will be released in the states come October 18th, check out the trailer below.
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