FILM OF THE WEEK
Beauty and the Beast
Cert: PG; Now showing
A COMBINATION of my age and my children’s ages means that I never got to see the 1991 Disney animation of Beauty and the Beast. Bill Condon’s much-anticipated live-action version of the animation is, at $160m, a no-expense spared beautiful rather than beastly version that uses the 1991 score with some new songs, retains a sweetness and even features that yellow dress.
There has been much made of it also featuring Disney’s first gay character, it does (Josh Gad) but he’s a lot more eejit than gay.
The story will be familiar but this version is set in the French village of Villeneuve where Belle (Emma Watson), with her weird-for-a-girl penchant for reading, lives with her forward-thinking father Maurice (Kevin Kline).
Belle dreams of a bigger life and refuses to marry town swaggery dude Gaston (Luke Evans), not that Gaston thinks her ‘no’ is a real answer.
On the way to market Maurice falls prey to magic and ends up prisoner of the Beast (Dan Stevens).
In my childhood book version the father, like all fairy tale fathers of the time, was a lily-livered man who traded his daughter for his own safety.
Not this Maurice. But feisty Belle tricks him so she is holed up in the enchanted castle with the Beast and his former staff, all now pieces of talking furniture (Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson). Only love can break the spell.
Watson is dutiful in her performance, the furniture actors have more fun.
Although not crucial to the history of BATB this is sweet, enjoyable and it is always visually sumptuous.