Nobody does sensory overload better than Disney. Beauty and the Beast is loud and non-stop with no time for nuance or reflection till we move on to the next big scene. But what’s to be gained from harrumphing your way through this feel-good movie? It’s a masterpiece at what Disney does best — animation blended with live action, art direction, in your face (literally, as this is 3-D) entertainment. Audiences cheer and applaud at the end of the movie. Young and old alike connect and chatter about their favorite scenes. You leave the theater smiling, happy, humming the score.
I left exhausted with a diabetic reaction to the excess.
In the third grade, I overdosed on divinity candy. This overpoweringly sweet confection is made from corn syrup, sugar, egg white and chopped pecans. Though it should be consumed in very small portions, I figured you couldn’t get too much of a good thing, so ate to excess, and vomited for hours. Now decades later, even a hint of that whitened, foamy-textured, pecan laced chunk triggers similar reactions. Whether divinity or Disney, while others cheer, I can feel the onset of clammy skin, dizziness, dull headache, rapid pulse and shallow breathing.
Over the years, the story of Beauty and her Beast has been a favorite of both film and TV in one version or another, including a 1946 film directed by no less than Jean Cocteau. In fact, director Bill Condon (Twilight Saga, Mr. Holmes, Dreamgirls) suggests that much of the set design, and even the Beast’s ram’s-head visage, in this version, is a homage to Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête. Disney released an animated musical version in 1991, songs and music by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, that soon had a life of its own on Broadway. This new eye-popping version is essentially the same story, animation now blended with live action and CGI, with a couple of new characters, or character motivation, some new or reworked songs credited to Tim Rice, and an ingenious and massively expensive set design.
Publicity materials crow about the $160 million spent to buy over 8,700 candles, over 12,000 feet of faux marble, thousands of books for the castle library, 10 chandeliers based on those from the Versailles ballroom, over 1,500 red roses grown or purchased for research or set decoration, an enchanted forest that features real trees, hedges, a frozen lake and 20,000 icicles, over 180 feet of light satin organza for Belle’s yellow dress, which took over 12,000 hours to create, accentuated with 2,160 — count ‘em — Swarovski crystals.
Underneath this mammoth production somewhere is the simple story of Belle and the beastly prince who learn to accept one another just for who they are. But this story of inward beauty and outward acceptance gets lost in the blockbuster bloat of the film. Too many of the moments in Beauty and the Beast seem to go on forever. The songs, the dances, the animated housewares, the prolonged conflicts of sweet Belle and over-preening Gaston, the vertigo-inducing camera movement, the castle’s Gothic exteriors and 18th-century rococo interiors, the snarling wolves, the whipsaw editing, all make you yearn for a quiet modest fairy tale cartoon where bad hearts are transformed and good hearts are rewarded. Gee, that’s what Disney gave us in the 1991 animated film. Live action, though beautiful and compelling, has not really improved on the original.
So much weight on this little story line. It drops. It sags. It bludgeons you into submission. Exhilaration becomes exhaustion. The Divinity Effect kicks in, and you are comatose by the end of the film.
Certainly it's a showcase for voice and talent: Belle (Emma Watson), Belle’s father Maurice (Kevin Kline), blowhard square-jawed Gaston (Luke Evans), his sidekick LaFou (Josh Gad), the Beast himself (Dan Stevens), with all the support and schtick from Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Audra McDonald, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Hattie Morahan, Nathan Mack, Ian McKellen and Emma Thompson. They are all charm personified, and the songs are delivered with gusto and verve, but the fairy tale charm is swamped by the swollen, swirling bombast around them.
It’s likely best that we don’t linger too long over the psychosexual implications of this cloven-hoofed Beast who imprisons and taunts the woman until it turns into true love. To Disney’s credit, Belle is an independent, self-sufficient, educated woman who swoons over books, not biceps. She will easily join the ranks of other Disney heroines who achieve their own identity independent of a rescuing prince. Surely I'm not the only one who preferred the hairy and horned beast over the bland blonde prince who loses all sense of individuality and character once he is released from the curse and becomes, well, merely human again. As Variety suggests, when Darth Vader is transformed into Hugh Grant, something’s lost.
And further to Disney’s credit, Gaston's sidekick LaFou as portrayed by Josh Gad, though simpering, doesn’t hide his same-sex preference and is even given a five-second twirl about the ballroom in the arms of another man. So far, Disney is staying strong on inclusivity in the face of an Alabama movie theater chain choosing not to run this blockbuster because of the gay character. And it is willing to forgo movie sales in heavily populated Malaysia where the law prohibits any movie that’s seen to promote (as in depicting positively) homosexuality. Disney did not bend to the censorship pressure, so there will be no Malaysia release when the rest of the world enjoys this mega-hit.
Beauty and the Beast
3.5 out of 5 stars
Directed by Bill Condon
Starring Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Kevin Kline, Luke Evans, Josh Gad, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson
Opens Mar. 17
This article appears in Mar 16-23, 2017.