It was the first day back from spring break. I burst into my room and threw my hamper filled with just-cleaned, but unfolded clothes onto the ground and excitedly told my roommate: "They have Beauty and the Beast!" ('They' being the small movie theater across from campus.) We bought our tickets for the 9:30pm 3D showing, and after enjoying a "better-than-dining-hall-food" dinner out on the town, we settled into our seats. The lights dimmed and the opening scene started playing, depicting the story of a spoiled prince who was turned into a beast for not showing humility to a poor traveler woman, who ended up actually being an Enchantress.
Now, I love fairytale movies. They are one of my favorite things to watch. I also love Emma Watson, so I was really looking forward to this film. Unfortunately, I feel it did not live up to what it could've been. Maybe that's because it had too much buzz and excitement around it, so I came in with high hopes, or maybe it just truly was lacking.
The backstory was what you'd expect of a fairytale retelling. There was nothing really unique about it, though I cannot condemn the writers for this because it is hard to be original when faced with a fairytale remake. So, I feel like in these situations, it is important for the director to live up to the task of uniqueness, something that Bill Condon did not do.
Bill Condon is a fairly well-known and well-received director known mostly for his work with Twilight, Dreamgirls, and Chicago. He has some incredibly accomplishments under his belt. Beauty and the Beast is not one of them. Littered with over exaggerated visuals that were more distracting than appealing, Beauty and the Beast lacked in any creative staging and original vision. There were some scenes where all I wanted to do was close my eyes and listen to the dialogue or music, rather than actually see what was happening.
Despite that, I was entertained throughout the movie. Was it an artistic or literary masterpiece? No. But, does it need to be? Not exactly.
Also, there were a couple of scenes that were little "wink-winks" to the queer community, which I, despite being a bit of a cynic when it comes to progress with social issues, actually appreciated and thought was well done. For example, there was a scene where everyone was dancing at a royal ball, and two men accidentally fall into each other, but they are not at all opposed to it and actually clearly are attracted to each other. There's another scene that exposes some queerness. A group of people coded as men are being attacked by a wardrobe, and they all get dressed up in dresses and makeup and other typically supposed "feminine" articles. Where two of the three people are appalled and run away in terror, one of them loves the way they look. I appreciated these little occurrences because they were not overbearing, and I did not think they were used in a tokenizing way. Rather, they clearly conveyed a subtle, yet simple message that queerness has and always will exist in any place, even fairytale worlds.
Overall, I was glad I watched it. It was not a waste of time. It has not become my all-time favorite film, but it was entertaining nonetheless.
