Not only is Beauty and the Beast Disney’s best fairy tale movie but I think it’s one of the best animated films ever made! Few other works of animation captivate, enchant, and move more than this relatively simple story about love and inner beauty. It’s dark and mysterious but upbeat and joyful, with a story and characters that are timeless and enjoyable, music and visuals that are unsurpassed, and a theme that’s incredibly important and poignant for audiences of any age.
The story is about Belle a dreamer and bookworm living in a secluded village who sets out to find her father after he disappears in the woods. She soon discovers he’s being held captive by a Beast in a castle who many years earlier had been transformed from a prince for his arrogance and vanity, with only the condition of his finding true love before the last petal of an enchanted rose falls. Belle offers herself as permanent prisoner in exchange for her father, and Beast as well as his transformed servants try to earn her affection so she can break the spell and return the kingdom to prosperity.
There are undeniably some inconsistencies with how the world of this film is set up. You can’t help but wonder why nobody remembers there was a prince living in a nearby castle no more than ten years ago for example. But the story itself is strong enough, the execution smooth, and it’s made abundantly clear that a degree of real world logic isn’t meant to apply in this fairy tale. On a story level, Beauty and the Beast hits all the desired points. The comic moments, romantic moments, and thrilling moments all feel earned and right for the plot. At times the dialogue can be a little cheesy but that’s par for the course in a Disney movie, and generally the film is very well written. You have an adequate grasp of every major character, their personalities and desires. But particularly I like the moral of the story. This wasn’t the first story to have a “beauty within” message but I feel it was executed especially vividly and memorably here. I’d pinpoint this to how it turns convention on its head. Many Disney movies before this have given their protagonist a love interest and a villain. But in Beauty and the Beast, it’s the villain Gaston who’s strong, confidant, and handsome while the love interest Beast is foreboding, aggressive, and ugly. Even as recently as The Little Mermaid we saw Eric and Ursula conforming to the more traditional archetypes. The idea that you don’t have to be traditionally good looking to find love is comforting, but I respect even more that this film doesn’t sugar-coat it. You don’t just have to have good intentions; behaviour and attitude are also important. It would have been easy to have the Beast be a nice guy and charming, just a victim of circumstance whom Belle could easily fall for in spite of his appearance, but they actually show he has to work for it. He’s unlikeable at first. The selfishness that got him cursed is still apparent and he has to overcome it to earn a happy ending. I love how this film includes that, making the moral a bit more layered than simply ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’.
This facet lends to Beast being a very compelling character, the most unconventional love interest in a Disney movie yet and certainly the first to be really genuinely interesting and developed. He’s got a creative design, being something of a mix between a wolf and a buffalo, and it allows for a variety of expressions that can range from scary to really funny. And his relationship with Belle though not developed very long is surprisingly believable. Beast’s growth is actually very endearing as he goes from just tolerating Belle to sacrificing his welfare for her happiness. Robbie Benson provides the voice and hits the best middle ground between sympathetic and threatening. I can understand these two falling in love which is weird considering with less capable talent making this film, it would simply look like Stockholm syndrome. And of course there’s Belle herself. When I was a kid she was the princess I had a crush on; she was brunette, had a lovely singing voice, and most importantly to me, she was a bookworm. And looking back now I realize how important it was that she was interested in reading. Gaston said it himself, women get “ideas” from reading, and so to have a Disney princess actually promoting literacy and broadening her mind makes her a great role model for kids of any gender. She’s also smart, curious, imaginative, and very proactive, definitely great character traits in a Disney female lead. And her animation is wonderful too. Like Ariel she gets some really unique expressions particularly in reacting to other characters. And of course as the title would suggest, for an animated character she’s very beautiful, stunning even in some moments. Paige O’Hara did a great job with her voice and I’m actually disappointed she never did much else after Belle.
As for the other characters, Gaston makes for a great satire of traditional male love interests more than he does a great villain. He’s an okay villain and suitably creepy, but the best moments of him are the comedic ones because his narcissism makes for a perfect foil. I feel like he’s an updated version of Brom Bones from Disney’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. His design certainly attests to that, with exaggerated manliness defining his physique. I like that they cast Richard White, an opera singer in the part, his distinct bombastic voice really standing out in song sequences. His henchman LeFou voiced by Jesse Corti is certainly the best evil sidekick since Horace and Jasper, being legitimately funny and having a great comedic design that makes him a joy to watch. And with Maurice you completely buy Belles’ defence of him due to his loving nature, but objectively can see he is a little insane. However the comedic scene-stealers to me are definitely Lumiere and Cogsworth. The lothario candlestick and aristocratic clock work off each other so naturally and charismatically, making for great physical comedy and verbal banter. Lumiere is voiced by Jerry Orbach from Law & Order while Cogsworth is voiced by David Ogden Stiers from M*A*S*H (Stiers also serves as the cryptic narrator) and I’d argue they’re Disney’s best comic relief double act. They’re complimented by Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts, the film’s most perfect casting as the matronly teapot with an exquisite singing voice. The film also features Jo Anne Worley as the Wardrobe and the chilling Tony Jay as the asylum warden. Luckily he’ll get a larger, meatier Disney role in a few years time!
I don’t know of any other Disney movie or even musical in general that has this perfect a soundtrack! Every song is not only great, but one of Disney’s best; this is clearly Alan Menken at his height! From expository songs like “Belle” and “Something There” to the comedy villain song “Gaston”, the intense “Mob Song” to the spectacle “Be Our Guest”, these are all an absolute delight to watch and listen to. And of course the title song “Beauty and the Beast” is incredibly sentimental but perfectly composed and executed; Lansbury’s voice is just so damn mesmerizing. There is one song that appears in some versions of the film called “Human Again” which isn’t bad, but it’s not nearly as great as the rest. It’s really pretty pointless and a little distracting, and ought to have been substituted for something like the far better “Home” from the Broadway production. All the rest of the songs serve the story and are placed at the right moments. Hopefully the version you see doesn’t include this song, as though it doesn’t take away much, it doesn’t add anything either. The music in general really sets a mood well and from the first moments as it accompanies the backstory you’re swept up in an immediate atmosphere that’s intriguing but also a little uneasy.
The stained glass windows help this effect a great deal and they along with just the general architecture of the castle makes Beauty and the Beast feel very Gothic. It’s a very dark story (kudos on actually showing blood!) and this mood is on full display with wonderful detail and creativity. The animation is masterfully gorgeous! There are times I think this may be the best looking animated movie ever, as there are numerous moments I just get lost in, spellbound by the look of a scene. I think in particular of Belle running through that field, or the “Be Our Guest” sequence, or when she’s exploring the west wing, or the wolf attack, or when the mob is marching with their shadows reflected against the woods, or any number of scenes in the castle or of the rose. And to be perfectly honest, set as it is against such a lovely song and characters, the “Beauty and the Beast” scene may be my favourite sequence in animation! The gold on blue colour scheme which I’ll forever associate with this film is so vibrant, and especially once the pair make their way to the ballroom and we get that impressive mimic of a graceful dolly shot panning down on them from above, it strikes me as everything wonderful about Disney magic and the art of animation on a whole, encompassing both the very best of traditional animation, and good use of CG that works in the moment perfectly!
It occurs to me I’ve used some variation of the term “perfect” a lot in this review, though I don’t actually think any movie is perfect. But Beauty and the Beast certainly as far as animated movies are concerned, comes closer than most. Just about every part of it from story to characters, music to animation, atmosphere to themes are done flawlessly. I dare even call it a masterpiece of animation; it’s certainly the first Disney Renaissance film that I consider to be classic Disney magic at work. And it was the first Disney animated film to be nominated for Best Picture, clearly deserving of the accolade. What more can I say, it’s Beauty and the Beast, a tale as old as time that will live on forever!
Next Week: Aladdin (1992)
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