Beauty and the Beast (2017)

What's the title?

Beauty and the Beast

Who directed it?

Bill Condon

When was it released?

2017

Would I recommend it?

Ehh...Maybe? For those who loved the animated classic, you might enjoy seeing the familiar characters in a beautiful new setting. Or you might find the film a sacrilege and should forgo seeing it, opting to let the animated film stand alone as the gem it is. For those who don't love the animated film, I don't know what to tell you because you and I are clearly not of the same species.

What's it about?(non-spoilers)

Beauty and the Beast is a fairly faithful adaptation of the 1991 movie of the same name. A bratty prince's cruelty to an enchantress gets himself turned into a Beast and his castle servants into sentient house ware until he can learn to love and be loved in return. The Beast imprisons a trespassing villager, whose beautiful and plucky daughter, Belle, comes to take his place. The singing candelabra is hopeful this Beauty will break the curse, but the Beast is not so sure. For who could ever learn to love a Beast?

What did you think? (spoilers)

I love Beauty and the Beast. I don't mean this Beauty and the Beast, no no no. I mean the 1991 animated classic. The 1991 film had a huge impact on me growing up, it helped me form my identity as a person. Growing up as a brunette, oddball bookworm, I felt like Belle's adventures were my adventures. Also, the film is just really freaking good. There's a reason why it was the first ever animated film nominated for an Oscar. Consequently my feelings going into the live action remake were complicated. Coming out of the remake my feelings were still complicated. Let's get into it, shall we?

THE GOOD

I'll say this - the live action remake is pretty. The sets and the costumes and the all of it was just stunning. As a piece of visual art, this movie works wonderfully.

I also appreciated the added backstories (I also didn't appreciate it, but I'll delve more into that wrinkle later). A lot of questions and concerns from the original film get answered here, from how the village is oblivious to this cursed castle just a quick horse ride away to why the enchantress would curse the help in addition to the the offending prince. Belle, Beast, Gaston, Lefou, and Maurice all get dimension added to their characters. Belle has always served as a proto-feminist Disney princess, but in this film her girl power is amplified. There is no casting herself down to sob.

This Belle is defiant and capable and relies on her own ingenuity. She doesn't stay at the castle simply because she's Beast's prisoner. Initially she's desperate to escape and only relents to staying first out of gratitude for Beast's rescue of her from the wolves and then out of a desire to save the cursed victims of this castle (this starts with just the servants but comes to include the Beast as well eventually another development I both appreciated and didn't, but again, I'll go more into it later).

Belle isn't the only part of the movie to get a feminist update. Female characters are expanded to have a more prominent role and consequently Belle feels like less of a Smurfette in the cast. People of color are visible both in the castle and in the town, including Belle's wonderful librarian ally, Pére Robert.

Belle's and Beast's romance feels more organic and well-earned. In the moments where the two only interact with each other, you see how kindred these two outcast spirits are, and it warmed the cockles of my heart. Every scene between the two of them put a smile on my face.

Phillipe gets to act as a super horse, less like his spook-happy animated counterpart and more like a French version of the Lone Ranger's Silver. I know this is a small thing, but, as a lover of the equine, I found this delightful.

THE BAD

The singing, you guys. It's not good. Well, that's not exactly fair. I imagine that if any of this cast went out for karaoke, they would probably be the best singers at the bar. But the animated film cast had Broadway-level talent, the remake did not, and the chasm of the songs' quality between the two is apparent.

An exception is Gaston, which is sung by Josh Gad - who has Broadway experience. When Dan Stevens broke out into a new song composed by Alan Menken for the remake, I couldn't help but long to hear Robby Benson's rendition instead. I love Emma Thompson. She's been Elinor Dashwood and Beatrice and P.L. Travers and I seriously love her. But Angela Lansbury she is not, and her rendition of eponymous song borderline ruined the ballroom scene. And Ewan McGregor, while he brings a delightful verve to his character, has a horrendous French accent - not just when he was singing, but also with his regular speaking voice. I so wish the director had allowed him to speak in his regular accent. Most of the cast spoke in their light British lilts, and Lumiere as a character is more than a Pepé Le Pew impression.

During the town's introduction, whenever information new to the remake was introduced it worked just fine, but when retreading story points it seemed like the film was building on presumed knowledge of the animated film. The result was disorienting and made the world-building in this film feel a little flimsy. For instance, the antagonism between Belle and Gaston felt more like a foregone conclusion than a story element that ways built and considered on its own merit.

Going back to the new backstories of characters - sure they helped make sense of the story. BUT. The animated film was a fairy tale - it wasn't supposed to make sense. In Kate Bernheimer's essay, "Fairytale is Form, Form is Fairytale" (yeah, I'm quoting an academic paper in this Disney movie review; I'm a nerd. Deal with it) she defines the four components of fairy tales as flatness, abstraction, intuitive logic, and normalized magic. When this movie rounds out the characters, gives them concrete identity, realistic motivations, and builds a world that is astounded by magic - it's no longer a fairy tale. But the remake's vice grip on faithfulness to the animated film doesn't allow it to completely shake off its fairytale elements, and so we're left with a hybrid that doesn't quite work.

Also, returning to Belle's decision to save the household and Beast - she stays because she wants to save them. She knows the castle is under a curse. She says this point blank, and the servants confirm that, yep , they're cursed. She knows the servants used to be human and could be human again. Seeing as how Belle is not a moron, we're given to understand that she must also know the same holds true for the Beast, that he was human and should the curse be lifted he'd become a human again. Also it's probably safe to assume she knows he'd turn into a human prince, given that he's master of a castle filled with servants.

This brings me to two questions. First, why does no one tell her how to lift the curse? She's flat out said she wants to, why wouldn't the servants tell her how? Sure, there was no guarantee to her immediately volunteering as tribute, but they could safely assume she would at least give some thought to the problem, and wouldn't the servants be desperate at this point from any and all help? Also, Belle helping someone she knows to be a human prince makes her relationship with him feel a bit more mercenary on her end. I don't think that feeling holds up all that well under thorough examination, but I did have it while watching the film. I'm not usually one to quibble on plot points, but this bothered me.

THE UGLY

The scenes about Lefou's sexuality were poorly done. There were maybe two brief moments that pertained to that story, and watching them felt like going over a speed bump. Clumsy and inorganic, they jerked me out of the film. The scenes seemed shoe horned in just for the sake of being shoe horned in. More's the pity, because Lefou's other storyline, becoming disillusioned about Gaston's role as town hero and good friend, was deftly handled and organic to the plot. I wish that could've been the primary focus of the character.

Cogsworth is my favorite character in all the Disney canon. More than Belle. More than Raymond from The Princess and the Frog. More than Khan from Mulan. I. Love. COGSWORTH. And the remake RUINED him.

His role as advisor to the Beast is gone. His sense of humor - which provided my favorite lines from the animated film - were filed down to a blink and you'll miss it cameo in Be Our Guest. Most unforgivably, this film turns him into a patent coward. Um, excuse me?

Cogsworth doesn't run away from invading villagers. Cogsworth puts on his napoleon hat and impales those who come after his best friends. He freaking saves Lumiere like a boss in the animated film, but is that in the remake? NO. It's the worst and I hate it.

VERDICT

When the film was building something new it was great, but whenever it tried to recreate the magic of the animated classic, it failed. I wish the film had embraced its identity as an adaptation as opposed to a scene for scene remake.

For its faults, I did enjoy this film for what it was. It's one I'd like to own and rewatch from time to time. But it doesn't hold a talking candle to the animated classic.