Where the original opened with a narration set against a series of stained-glass windows explaining the curse, Condon’s production opens with Audra McDonald’s ‘Aria’ in an exquisite ballroom.
(Yes, I am going to try and fit in a few song references – you have been warned). So, we invite you to relax and pull up a chair as Criticks proudly presents… this review. Beauty and the Beast changes this, offering a highly stylized representation of the period, and this review hopes to indicate some of the topoi in the film that root the narrative in a period I’m sure we can all agree is rich in imaginative potential. Last year, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) offered a certainly new take on the age of sensibility aside from such parodies, fantastical stories are rarely given great historical specificity.
Led by Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as that grumpy old beast, Beauty and the Beast is a stunning re-imagining that is mythic in its approach, with a host of hints and references for the eagle-eyed eighteenth-century specialist especially. Critics have been ambivalent in their reception of the film: Anthony Lane praised it for its ‘sheer dexterity’, whilst Wendy Ide moaned, ‘When a meal turns into a full-on Busby Berkeley-style dance routine featuring jitterbugging cutlery and can-canning china, there’s a sense of desperation, of a film too eager to justify its existence.’ Perhaps if Ide watched the 1991 original, or maybe even appreciated Disney for what it is (we only have look back to 2016’s The Jungle Book to find Bill Murray lending his vocal talents to a singing bear), she’d appreciate the je ne sais quoi of this adaptation. The live-action adaptation of the 1991 Disney classic, Beauty and the Beast arrived in cinemas across the world at the end of February.