We typically understand “Beauty and the Beast” stories as those in which a man who is cursed draws a beautiful woman into an unlikely romance that saves him from a burden of suffering and her from loveless conformity. Columbus offers us a different take: Beauty emanates from the world of imagination, drawing two cursed characters into a meaningful relationship through its redemptive aesthetic influence.
When a touring architecture scholar collapses before a lecture in Columbus, Indiana, his fall brings together two unlikely seekers: the young and directionless Casey (a radiant Hayley Lu-Richardson), his admiring fan, and his resentful son Jin (John Cho), a Korean-American translator.
Casey’s days, darkened by vocational uncertainty and the cloud of her mother’s depression, are brightened by this chance to show a skeptical visitor around her neighborhood and share the beacons of architectural beauty that have kept her from drifting into despair. As they ponder the meaningful mysteries of asymmetry in Columbus’s public spaces and churches, their tenuous friendship transcends “Will they or won’t they?” routines.
Meanwhile, the scholar’s vigilant, harried assistant (Parker Posey) works to heal the prodigal’s family rift. Recalling Linklater’s Before Sunrise, Coppola’s Lost in Translation, and (above all) Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours, director Kogonada’s debut is an exquisite, soft-spoken surprise about the reconciling and rejuvenating effect of (for lack of a better term) intelligent design.
—Jeffrey Overstreet, Looking Closer
Arts & Faith Lists:
2017 Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury — #9