The film is a Southern “Romeo and Juliet” with a magical twist. Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), our “Romeo,” is a boy in a small Southern town who loves to read and dreams of attending a university far, far away from his town (that has annual civil-war re-enactments and holds town gatherings at church to discuss the banning of devil-worshipers). We can see why he wants to leave. He falls pretty quickly for a mysterious newcomer to the town, Lena (Alice Englert), who everyone quickly learns is a witch, or as her family and she prefer, “caster.”
With the soap-opera like story line and some pretty cool magic tricks, this film could’ve been a nice fix for “Twilight” and “Harry Potter” fans who are currently experiencing the shakes, sweats and other withdrawal symptoms from the ending of those series. But apparently, you can’t have enough Southern hospitality for one person. The heavy-laced Southern accents in the film are about as overbearing as an entire bottle of maple syrup and one pancake.
The actors and actresses (none of which are from the South) sounded like they watched an episode of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” minutes before the scenes were filmed. While the film is set in South Carolina, it’s also set in present-day and the overuse of “Mama says” before every sentence gives the film a 19th century Antebellum feel. It’s painful and quite sad to watch acclaimed British actress Emma Thompson force an 1850’s summer-heated Southern accent.
Beauty is definitely in the eyes of the beholder because the film was nothing short of an ugly mesh of ear-bleeding Southern draw and blatantly stereotypical performances. Until next time fantasy-romance feigns!
