Beauty and the Beast

If I’m honest, Disney’s track record with live adaptations of their animated classics has not been entirely stellar: beginning with a camp, over-coloured and over-lit Cinderella, continuing with a darker and CGI-dominated Jungle Book, and then a Pete’s Dragon that I don’t even remember having a long run in the cinema. Bearing this in mind, I was both excited and dubious when they announced that Beauty and the Beast was the next adaptation in the works. It was my all-time absolute favourite growing up and remains my top Disney film to this day and I have to say that I am relieved and exhilarated that it has been done justice. 

We all know the story: a selfish prince (Dan Stevens) is cursed by an enchantress to live as a beast while his castle decays and its inhabitants slowly turn into furniture and antiques. The only hope of breaking the spell is if the prince can learn to love a woman and earn her love in return. One night a traveller happens upon the castle and takes a rose from one of the bushes in the grounds. He is then taken as the Beast’s prisoner and his daughter, Belle (Emma Watson), travels to the castle and offers herself in his place. From there, the unlikely and beautiful relationship blooms between Belle and Beast, but will it break the spell in time? 

My love and adoration for the characters and the story was a strong influence on my experience with this movie, but I have to say that everything about this movie played on that and heightened it, resulting in laughter, warm sighs, and heartbroken tears. I responded very strongly to this movie. Let’s first talk about the aesthetic. Everything visual in this movie was absolutely beautiful! From the elaborate period costumes to the lavish set of the castle, everything was vibrant, magnificent, and just stunning! 

Then we have the CGI, which worked a sight better than The Jungle Book where the animals still looked like CGI animals. The computer wizards here worked some true magic in bringing the enchanted inhabitants of the castle to life and this, mixed with the art design and the voice work of the actors really worked to make this CGI characters real and loveable. 

As an adaptation, this is very close to the source material, with one or two changes made. I loved that all the original songs were there as well as a few new ones, including a beautiful lament that Beasts sings, which just made me cry. As with The Jungle Book, the original score is used, but re-orchestrated to be richer and fuller. The music of this movie has always been beautiful and it’s brought to new life here with the numbers being very big and exciting and the cast showing off some surprising singing chops. Emma Thompson gives Angela Lansbury a real run for her money. 

The cast was very well picked. Emma Watson as Belle has this lovely modern edge to her that makes her stand out against the provincial village, and Luke Evans as Gaston is a gorgeous and funny blend of peacock and psycho. 

But the real star of the show is Dan Stevens as the Beast. His deep and velvety rich voice brings both fear and funny to the character, especially as we get to see more of his personality. A spoilt child, but also lonely and denied the proper levels of love and sociality needed during growing up, Stevens’ Beast was a much deeper and complicated character than the animated original and I absolutely fell in love with him. 

Just as Belle is a modern girl in an older period, so too are many of the themes that this movie explores. The education of women is loud and clear, as it was in the original, but the movie also subtly plays with the different kinds of relationships that people can have, be they interracial, between different classes of society, or between members of the same sex. 

What’s beautiful is that the social commentary is not rammed down everyone’s throats and the movie retains this beautiful balance between reality and fairytale. 

If I had to name a negative, I found myself getting confused as to when this movie was actually set in time as some of the dialogue just does not gel with the sets and costumes. However, this is a small niggle and I was not disconnected from the film, thinking about it for long. 

Any lover of Disney would do well to go and see this. It’s the best live adaptation that Disney has done to date and everything about it is absolutely beautiful! Not only that, it creates all the feels! I laughed, swooned, sighed, and cried multiple times during this movie and when a film can create those types of responses, you know it’s doing things right! 

Starring: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Kevin Kline, Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson, Nathan Mack, Audra McDonald, Stanley Tucci, and Ian McKellen 

Rating: PG