This Beautiful Fantastic

Depending on how you take your twee - sparingly or, as is the case in this preciously concocted tale of English misfits, slathered like marmalade over a crumpet - it will either delight or quickly cloy.

A charming, beautifully photographed modern fairy tale about love and gardening, This Beautiful Fantastic is worth seeing in spite of its dumb deterrent of a title.

A very low-stakes fairy tale, wrapped in a strained garden metaphor.

Aboud ... works some obvious parallels as he tells the story of a timid young woman, her cranky old neighbor and the garden that separates them, but enjoyable performances keep the tale from becoming too heavy-handed.

Far too precious and eager to please to really deserve its self-description as a fairy tale.

Like its title, with those synonymous adjectives, Simon Aboud's film strings together a story that strains to be charming while actually being immediately predictable.

Slow but sweet, clichéd but charming, if whimsy's your thing you'll dig this offbeat, comedic, family-friendly, flight of fancy...

Finlay reminds one of a young Winona Ryder as she winsomely juggles learning to garden with letting her guard down, while the always watchable Andrew Scott once again proves to be a scene-stealer with his kindly cook.

The broad strokes of This Beautiful Fantastic are inarguably the stuff of fairy tales. But its heart is purely human.

Simon Aboud's whimsical yet slight This Beautiful Fantastic is the latest in the English Garden subgenre, in the vein of The Lady in the Van or A Man Called Ove (which is Swedish but still qualifies).

Whimsical, sweet story about friendship, gardening.