Poor Disney. With this live-action remake of the beloved animation Beauty and the Beast, the studio tried to do the right thing. A gay character (played by Josh Gad) is introduced and Belle (Emma Watson) gets an injection of feminist sass. Unfortunately, Gad’s character LeFou is hardly the celebration of diversity one would hope for – he’s a prancing rainbow flag of a sidekick, defined by the comic potential of his sexuality rather than just his sexuality. And Belle, with her skirt tucked into her bloomers and her sniffy disdain for the “provincial life”, might be a feminist but she’s also kind of a dick.
Bill Condon’s revamp of the material goes all out on spectacle. And, with its flourishes, curlicues and gilt – so much gilt! – the film is undeniably arresting. But there’s a point where the design goes from ornate to needlessly overbearing. And the swoops and dives of the camera are every bit as extravagant as the look of the film. 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. It’s worth remembering that the definitive version of this story, Jean Cocteau’s La belle et la bête, gets its brooding magic as much from what it withholds from the screen as what it chucks its way.
