Review: Beauty and the Beast: Retelling a classic

It’s said to be a “tale as old as time” and while its origins date back to the 18th Century, the definitive version of Beauty and the Beast doesn’t go that far back. In fact, the Disney animated version that this new live action film is based on just came out in 1991. And while it doesn’t seem that long ago, it seems 26 years is enough time to pay tribute to a classic.

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We’ve seen a lot of classic fairy tale retellings recently. Some are being told through the perspective of a different character, others are choosing unorthodox ways to tell the same tale. Some have been successful with this formula, others aren’t as lucky.

But this version of Beauty and the Beast isn’t quite like that. Its creators themselves didn’t want to spin the story another way. Instead they wanted to bring it to life. At first, its director Bill Condon didn’t even want to go near the movie because he considered the 1991 version “to be a perfect movie.” But later on he felt like it was time for the Disney classic to get a live-action adaptation.

I had no expectations walking into the premiere screening of the film. I daresay I was wary even. And yes, I know the movie assembled great cast but I just wasn’t sure if it was time for a remake. Like Condon, I liked the original just the way it was.

Thankfully, I was proven wrong. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The production team took as much as it could out of the original material while throwing in some new things to flesh out the characters and bring them to life, so to speak.

Any girl who grew up in the ’90s knows of Belle and how “unusual” of a heroine she’s considered. With her being more concerned with expanding her horizons and reading incessantly, she was aiming to be a better person on her own instead of being someone else’s wife. Perhaps it was timed perfectly that her story gets retold and shown in the country during National Women’s Month. Nevertheless, the villagers in the story found her odd and shunned her, which is something she shares with our cursed male lead, Beast.

The prince, as we know, is cursed by a beautiful enchantress after he refused to extend kindness to the said enchantress while she was disguised as an old beggar. So with his intimidating appearance, not to mention his insolent attitude, he was shunned by those around him as well.

And as fate would have it, Belle finds herself the Beast’s prisoner after she tries to rescue her father Maurice from him. There she gets over her fears and befriends the enchanted staff who’ve turned into inanimate objects and at the same time discovers the kind soul of the prince beyond his scary exterior. It’s a classic tale and you can’t go wrong with it.

But I appreciate what Condon and screenplay writers Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spilitopoulos tweaked in the story to ground it a bit. For one, we get a setting. The story takes place in 18th century France in a small village called Villeneuve. Despite what the actors’ British accents suggest, the setting was inspired by the village of Conques in Southern France and it was named after La Belle et la Bête‘s author Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.

Belle’s father Maurice (played by Kevin Kline) isn’t an inventor this time but an artist who makes rather intricate music boxes. One of the pieces his made shows a piece of their family life, a hint to the “origin story” shown in the film. It’s not a big plot point but we get to see how Belle and the Beast grew up, which helps explain how they turned out the way they did.

One other aspect Condon was paying special attention to was bringing the musical to life. He wanted to pay homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood with this film. So he relies on the help of Alan Menken, who scored the animated film with the late Howard Ashman, and Tim Rice. Menken and Rice made new recordings of the original songs while adding three new numbers into the mix. While I’m still very partial to the classic songs, I foresee all these songs being a part of the lives of the young ones who get to experience Beauty and the Beast for the first time.

Condon assembles such a formidable cast for this film. Leading the charge is Emma Watson. While it took me a while to disassociate her with Harry Potter‘s Hermione. You know she’s meant to be a Disney Princess or to be Belle herself.

While we hardly get to see Dan Stevens physically as he’s mostly represented digitally on screen, the wonders of technology shows an acceptably realistic version of the Beast with a wide range of facial expressions from Stevens.

The other big names in the cast bring big personalities to the enchanted objects/staff in the castle including Ewan McGregor as Lumière, the Prince’s proper French valet turned candelabra; award-winning actor Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the fastidious and tightly-wound head butler who is transformed into a mantel clock; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, the cheeky maid turned elegant feather duster who seems to have a romantic relationship with Lumière; Audra McDonald as Madame de Garderobe, renowned Italian opera diva turned wardrobe; Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, the Cockney housekeeper who becomes a teapot; and Hattie Morahan as Chip, Mrs. Potts’ son who turns into a teacup.

The film also gains a new character in Maestro Cadenza, the husband of Madame de Garderobe who turns into a harpsichord. He’s played by Stanley Tucci.

Gatson in this remake gets played brilliantly by Luke Evans. His arrogance and inflated sense of importance is a result of being a war hero who saved the town of Villeneuve. The man has a quick temper, too, and with little control, you can see how that causes trouble in the movie.

But the true scene-stealer here has to be Josh Gad’s portrayal of LeFou. He was nothing but a simple-minded sidekick to Gaston in the animation but here he gets a bit more of a personality and a blink-and-you-miss-it “gay moment” that’s being inflated in the media these days. To be honest, the supposed moment is so minuscule and ambiguous that the whole hullaballoo is ridiculous.

I digress, though, Beauty and the Beast demonstrates that we are ready to bring this film’s more enchanting aspects to life. The relationship between the actual actors and the animation seems a bit touch and go at times (like during “Be Our Guest” segment). But you can choose to ignore those. What I liked brought to life in the movie is how the castle itself seemed affected by the curse. Parts of it start to falter as the petals from the enchanted rose fall one by one.

Beauty and the Beast is so grand and extravagant and you can see that in the sets and in every other aspect, too. It masterfully brings the fairy tale to life in the best possible way. And definitely worth a trip to the cinema for.