Review: "Belle"

Director: Amma Asante
Runtime: 104 minutes

In one of the first scenes of Belle, the younger version of the title character gazes at a painting of an English nobleman and his black servant. The boy is painted submissively, so as to draw the attention to the important white figure and his commanding gaze. These works of art inform Amma Asante's sophomore feature at every turn, as she turns them on her head. The paintings used people of color to draw focus to white figures, while Asante's film uses a well-known white English cast to draw our focus to a biracial actress. That it does this in a fact-based story set in the 18th century is even more noteworthy. Deceptively radical in its approach to Austen-esque stories of love and manners, Belle is both a rewarding character study and a compassionate work of historical and social commentary. 

Born of a slave woman and an English naval officer (Matthew Goode), Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is left by her father only hours after meeting him. Though Goode's Capt. John Lindsay shows Dido nothing but affection in their brief time together, he's unable to look after her. He leaves her with Lord and Lady Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson), the girl's uncle and aunt, albeit without first informing them of her race. Begrudgingly, the Mansfields accept the girl and treat her well, though they intend to hide her from society as long as possible. Sheltered at the Mansfield estate in the country, Dido grows close to Elizabeth Murray (Sarah Gadon), another charge left with the Mansfields.

Yet Dido's life starts to change as she reaches the age when aristocratic girls were expected to "come out" in order to secure a husband. Though financially secured thanks to her inheritance, Dido still struggles to navigate a society that reduces her to little more than "the black" or "the mulatto." As one character points out, the aristocrats will take any excuse they can to diminish or dismiss one of their ranks.

However, even with all of the outings and courtship rituals, Belle remains a lively piece of drama. Asante and Misan Sagay's script have captured the repressed manners of the time and place without making the actual film stiff or distancing. The issues of race, wealth, and power, are not always handled subtly, but they treated with intelligence and care. Some moments are overwrought thanks to Rachel Portman's lush, overwhelming score, but the film's noble intentions ultimately shine through. 

A great deal of this comes down to newcomer Mbatha-Raw. In a sea of faces one expects to see in this sort of period drama, the biracial British actress is absolutely captivating, and not simply because of her "otherness" when placed among her cast mates. She has the right mix of poise and passion, to immediately grab and hold your attention. Though other characters (namely Gadon's Elizabeth) have their own legitimate struggles, Dido's are magnified and complicated by both her race and her illegitimacy. In one of the film's most powerful scenes, drawn from Asante's own experiences, Dido sits in front of a mirror and claws at her own skin, wishing she could simply disappear. Mbatha-Raw's radiant performance is captivating because it captures the essence of a typical Austen-heroine, while also infusing it with darker realities.

The rest of the cast fares quite well, especially Gadon as Dido's unofficial sister and Wilkinson as her uncle trapped between the status quo and deeply buried progressive notions. Mbatha-Raw's interactions with these two are among the film's best acted scenes. Gadon's Elizabeth, despite fitting the mould of a English rose, is without her own inheritance, thus making her less valuable as a potential match. In Elizabeth, we see a parallel as to how the treatment of women as property mirrored (though not nearly to the same degrading degree) the treatment of slaves. Things only get more complex when Dido becomes engaged while Elizabeth struggles to make any progress. 

While scenes with Elizabeth show Dido interacting with things as they are, her time with Wilkinson is smartly used to build the story's more groundbreaking arc. Lord Mansfield, the highest ranking judge in England, has been asked to review a case of a slave ship that threw slaves overboard, claiming that there wasn't enough water to keep them all healthy. As such, the ship owners want payment from the insurers for the human cargo they "lost." The issue of the value of a human life, black or white, is what raises the narrative above the ordinary. 

Asante's ability to balance the two sides of the story so well make Belle a lush, historically aware work. Neither side is shortchanged, and each is given the appropriate weight. In handling both halves so well, Dido's transformation is even stronger than it would have been if the focus had been primarily on one or the other. For all of the heaving bosoms, colorful gowns, and melodramatic outbursts, Belle is unique as period pieces go. In making the film feel like a straightforward period piece, despite its issues of race, Asante has turned the genre on its head. Belle doesn't need to be blatantly 'edgy' to stand out, because its simple toying with expectations accomplishes volumes more. 

Grade: B

Review: "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"

Just about everyone in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a light comedy-drama from John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) may be in retirement, but to label the film an "old person's movie" would be a huge disservice. Boasting a fine assembly of some of Britain's finest actors, Madden's latest film does, unfortunately, set itself up for nothing more than cliches. But this is mostly in the results, meaning that even though Marigold trips up in some of its conclusions, the journey is still very much worth taking. 


The film opens with a series of efficient introductions to its cast of characters, all of them British retirees who, in one way or another, find themselves sent to India as part of the next (and likely final) stage of their retirement. The characters range from Evelyn, a housewife who recently lost her husband (Judi Dench) to recently-retired judge Graham (Tom Wilkinson). Meanwhile, the group of seven stay at the titular (and severely misrepresented) Marigold Hotel under the watch of Sonny (Dev Patel), the young, idealistic manager. The film as a whole is generally light on plot from that point forward, although that usually works in its favor. 


Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker allow the characters and the audience to get a sense of the beauty and chaos that is India, without ever falling into the trap of becoming an accidental National Geographic special. And even though it runs just over two hours, Marigold never feels like it overstays its welcome. Certain characters and subplots are sometimes left alone for too long (particularly Sonny's relationship with his girlfriend), but once they come up again, the film executes them well. Madden and his tremendously gifted cast create a wonderful atmosphere, tinged with the right mix of comedy and drama, that the proceedings only begin to feel slight in one of the film's most critical sequences near the end, where nearly everything is resolved too neatly for its own good. 


So much of what makes the film enjoyable to watch is how it uses the Indian setting (as well as the clash of cultures) to inform the character study across the ensemble. Among the film's best segments are those revolving around Wilkinson, whose character is the only one of the group to have been to India before. That the character is returning to India (where he actually grew up) marks a nice contrast to the other stories. He is going to live out his last days back where it all started, whereas everyone else is going further from home than they've ever been. These are the sorts of narratives that don't seem to require the most concrete resolutions, except that the script insists on them anyway, completely throwing off Madden's lovely vision of India as a land that assaults all of one's senses at once. The film's final sequence rectifies this to a degree, ending on a note that feels more in line with more open, character-based style, but the big scene, which resolves three or four problems all in rapid-fire succession, comes off as a weak attempt to ramp up the dramatic tension in the story, and it feels wholly unnecessary. Yes, elements in Marigold are cliched, but they don't feel cliched thanks to the execution, that is until the above-mentioned scene comes along and calls direct attention to it. 


Thankfully, even the film's weakest moments are elevated by the stellar ensemble. In fact, the benefit of having a cast that isn't young at all is that everyone is a pro at this, and one never gets the sense that any of them are trying too hard (though it's a shame that Downton Abbey co-stars Penelope Wilton and Maggie Smith never have a chance to engage in any verbal smack downs). This isn't to say that the cast puts in the bare minimum of effort, merely that there's a level of comfortability so that one never has to worry about one odd member of the group throwing the balance of the ensemble off due to less experience. The behind-the-scenes team isn't too shabby either. Thomas Newman's score captures the scenes nicely without becoming overbearing or getting in the way of the actors. More impressive is Ben Davis' cinematography, which captures the wild range of texture and color that India has to offer in any number of sumptuously photographed scenes. Newman and Davis' work stands out just the right amount, never calling too much attention to itself, while still smoothing out some of the bumps in the screenplay through their contributions to the film's atmosphere. 


So despite the cliches that ultimately mar the resolution, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has so much going for it that it's hard to knock it down too much. This is a measured, though still heartfelt film about aging and new beginnings that, despite its older cast, has something in it for a wide range of ages. It's also a reminder that Mr. Madden, while having never topped the success of Shakespeare in Love over a decade ago, remains a sensitive and effective film maker whose work is still worth following. 


Grade: B