Disney’s Beauty a lame affair

Black Beauty (PG, 110 mins) Directed by Ashley Avis Reviewed by James Croot ★★1⁄2

It is one of the best-selling books of all time. The sole novel from a housebound author, who died just months after its publication. The 1877 tale that started out as a treatise against mistreatment of horses, but has become a beloved children’s book. In the past century, it has spawned half-a-dozen cinematic adaptations, an animated feature, two TV series and an LP.

But this latest Black Beauty is different. Yes, it still features a horse narrator and plenty of equine derring-do, but the English thoroughbred stallion is now a mustang mare from the wilds of Utah. Last time out, in 1994, Beauty’s voice was the soft burr of Alan Cumming, now it’s Kate Winslet strangling American vowels. Likewise, writer-director Ashley Avis (Adolescence, The Trouble With Mistletoe) has retained original author Anna Sewell’s episodic trawl through owners kind and mean, but reframed things so that it’s more a kind of gee-geed up Nicholas Sparks-meets-A Dog’s Purpose.

Despite Winslet’s overly-flowery narration having to do a lot of the heavy lifting in the first half-hour, this Beauty is as much the story of teenager Jo Green (Interstellar, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’

Mackenzie Foy), as it is the horse’s.

Like Beauty, Jo has been permanently separated from her parents (by a car crash) and forced to live on her Uncle John’s (Game of Thrones’ Iain Glen, struggling even more than Winslet with his US accent) farm.

Recognising a fellow broken spirit (Beauty is still blaming herself for leading the Bureau of Land Management to her band), Beauty bonds with Jo, even while shunning everyone else’s attempts to break/partner-with her. However, Beauty is living on borrowed time. If she won’t acquiesce to being ridden, she’ll have to be sold.

Veering from a sedate trot to panicked gallop, Avis’ Beauty

suffers from pacing problems and a plodding predictability. This is a South African-shot tale – ironic, given the book was believed to have been banned by the country’s Apartheid-era government because of its title.

It is filled with a cloying, tinkly piano soundtrack, ‘‘god-light’’ moments and slo-mo-a-go-go, as well as narrative beats that seem straight out of Michael Martin Murphey’s 1975 song Wildfire.

And you can almost recite the narration before it happens. Let’s just say, ‘‘it was the last time I would ever see him/her’’ loses its impact the third time around.

Other issues abound, from Thomasin McKenzie-lookalike Foy seeming not to age at the same rate as the horse, to the onedimensional baddies and polo-shirt sporting love interest and an almost Scooby Doo-esque finale.

While that may make it sound like a complete ’mare, it’s not. Beauty has its moments and horse movie fans will likely bridle at such a low opinion of it. But when compared to Flicka, Secretariat, Seabiscuit or Lean on Pete, it lags.

Black Beauty is streaming on Disney+.