The Beauty and the Beast remake is a long series of wasted opportunities – The Verge

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the tiny details that differentiate the 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast from the 1991 animated version.

Theres been a fair bit of controversy over Bill Condons live-action remake of Disneys animated 1991 classic Beauty and the Beast, mostly centered over Condons proclamation that hes given Disney its first canonically, openly gay character. In an interview with Attitude, Condon described that character, the villains sycophantic sidekick LeFou, as if his sexuality was a significant, foregrounded part of the plot, and as if it ultimately arrived at some major moment of truth:

Hes confused about what he wants. Its somebody whos just realising that he has these feelings. And [actor Josh Gad] makes something really subtle and delicious out of it. And thats what has its payoff at the end, which I dont want to give away. But it is a nice, exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie.

But when it arrives, that nice, exclusively gay moment is a one-second shot of LeFou in a fancy ballroom-dance finale, accidentally shoved into the arms of a nameless man whos wearing drag because of an earlier sight gag. It isnt an exclusively gay moment, its about a dozen vaguely campy frames. Much like Finding Dorys controversial, much-ballyhooed lesbian couple two women who appeared in a extremely brief, silent reaction shot in the film LeFou is all PR blitz and no actual payoff. But the tepidness of this built-up moment hasnt stopped the predictable backlash, from online complaints to an Alabama theater noisily pulling the film from its lineup (proving the bigoted old chestnut why are they pushing their views on us is still alive and well in the world) to Malaysia banning the film. To Disneys credit, the company has refused to recut the film to appease Malaysian censors, which is an admirably principled stand to take over a single second of footage.

The LeFou imbroglio is an immense wasted opportunity. Promoting Beauty and the Beast by touting its daring inclusivity (or, grotesquely, its tribute to lyricist Howard Ashman), makes for a lot of attention-grabbing articles. But the actual execution is dull or mildly offensive, given that Disneys first official gay character (ignoring its coded ones and fan-canon ones) is a catty, clingy, regressive, confused stereotype. Beauty and the Beast isnt necessarily the right forum to explore the nuances of the gay experience. But given how much virtual ink the character has gotten, its baffling how little there is to him, not just as a gay man, but as a developed figure of any kind.

Its largely a frustrating clone of the original movie

And he isnt the only wasted opportunity in Condons remake. Its largely a frustrating clone of the original movie same songs, same script, often even the exact same shot choices but it replaces every moment of authentic or moving emotion with bombast and hyperbolic overemphasis. It slows down the flow of the familiar music by jamming in extra phrases, and builds up the energy by jamming nonstop, busy action onto the screen. Its a garish, strident film, as well as a profoundly unnecessary one. And wherever its creators come up with fresh subplots or new character details, they tend to be poorly integrated, slapped erratically over the existing narrative like a half-assed coat of paint. Among the other things the film throws out and instantly discards:

The prerelease hype around LeFou was mirrored by the prerelease hype around Belle, with Emma Watson, who plays her in the film, telling EW that Belle is now the talented inventor, rather than her father Maurice. The idea was to give Belle more of a background, and more of a purpose in life than wandering around singing about how her community disappoints her. In practice, though, her big background development consists entirely of a scene where she uses a barrel and a donkey to do her laundry so she has more time to read. She doesnt actually use her newfound inventing skills to any meaningful narrative purpose. When she needs to escape a cage, Beasts servants help her; when she needs to pick a lock, Maurice handles it. Any ambitions she has as an inventor are never verbalized, and her theoretical skills never become useful. Past the brief laundry sequence, inventing never comes up again. Its not part of the story, its a random, unattached moment.

In the same way, theres a quick shot of Belle teaching a young girl to read, and angering the local peasants, who quickly stop her. Apparently female literacy is anathema in a fantasy villa where only the boys are seen going to school. This is meant to explain why the entire town is so obsessed with Belle being, as the opening song says, very different from the rest of us and a beauty but a funny girl. The idea of Belle trying to overcome institutionalized sexism in a provincial town is a pretty heady one. But again, the film does nothing with it, apart from a single line from Belle, late in the film, complaining about how she doesnt fit in with the locals.

Less hyped, but still strangely underlined in the new movie, is the idea that the villainous blowhard Gaston (Luke Evans) is such a jerk because hes a professional soldier with no battles left to fight, and he longs to return to a simpler, more purposeful time in his life. He and LeFou know each other from the war, where they were comrades in arms. Its a potentially meaningful relationship that explains why Gaston blankly tolerates LeFous creepy handsiness, and why LeFou sticks with a loudmouthed bully. Its mildly implied that Gastons temper and inability to control his rage comes from his past, and that LeFou is an actual friend who shares Gastons history and honestly respects and understands him. Thats another potentially powerful development, but it mostly surfaces via a couple of throwaway lines, and one joke about LeFous Gaston-whispering talents.

The heel-face turn is a great tradition in stories about villains, and its given American pop culture some of its most memorable story endings in Return of the Jedi, in Dr. Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, even most recently in Moana. So the idea that LeFou might not play out entirely as a villain is potentially intriguing and certainly in keeping with Condons larger intentions for the character. Bad enough for Disneys first supposed openly gay character to be swishy, obsessive, and annoying without him also being an irredeemable villain. If only the characters development had any meaningful roots in the earlier parts of the story. There are tiny hints at him having a personality past sidekick in his emotional support of Gaston, but as character development goes, its a thin soup. At most, he gets a couple of lines to support the idea that he has his own morals and goals the best one is a new addition in The Mob Song, as Gaston whips the villagers into a fury against the Beast. His Meh, Ive decided to switch sides! line is particularly offhanded and silly.

One of the minor problems viewers grumbled over in the original Beauty and the Beast was the question of why Beasts servants Lumire, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, et al stand by him and seem to care so much about him, when he brought a magical curse down on them by being a selfish brat, and has subsequently turned into a temperamental, dangerous tyrant. That isnt actually much of a plot hole. Of course they stand by him and serve him hes their only chance at getting the curse lifted. Their affection for him is largely crisis management and mollification. And where can an anthropomorphic candlestick, clock, and teapot expect to go if they leave the enchanted castle?

When the film does try something new, its via halfhearted throwaway lines

But Condons version of the film does expressly take up the question. Mrs. Potts has a little monologue explaining how Beasts mother died early and his father was a vain tyrant who turned him into a vain tyrant in return. The servants did nothing to stop any of this, so they feel responsible. Screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos try hard to bring an old-world servant-and-master relationship into a 2017 setting, where loyalty and service are expressly about emotional responsibility and the idea that all awful behavior has its roots in childhood trauma. But this quickie application of plot-spackle raises more questions than it answers. Where is Beasts father? Why did the servants think they had any responsibility, or ability, to fix a prince following in a kings footsteps? Why is Disney so obsessed with dead mothers? If the servants are only hanging around because they feel they owe Beast for not interfering in his upbringing, why arent they making any efforts at all to help him improve his awful personality and terrible behavior?

Disney has struggled to define exactly what it wants to do with its seemingly endless (and depressingly profitable) run of live-action remakes of animated classics. Are they meant as homages, updates, brand deposit reminders of existing franchises, or just high-profile cash grabs? The answer varies slightly from film to film. Alice in Wonderland didnt feel like a remake so much as a new version of Lewis Carrolls classic novel, strained through Tim Burtons house brand of morbid whimsy and the cultural landscapes contemporaneous obsession with young-adult-novel-worthy teen action heroines. Maleficent tried to give Sleeping Beautys villain a tragic backstory, and wound up as a pretty but uncomfortably imitative merging of Disneys film and the Broadway hit musical Wicked. Cinderella made the title character more bland and passive, ramping up the villains personality at everyone elses expense. So far, only The Jungle Book has made it to the screen with a strong point of view and additions to the story mostly from Rudyard Kiplings original Jungle Book stories, but in part original creations that deepen the characters and make their conflicts more meaningful.

In Beauty and the Beasts case, virtually all of the new additions to the story are aimed vaguely in the same direction. As the marketing suggests, the updates are all about backstory, about trying to make the characters more three-dimensional, to make their choices more meaningful, their origins clearer, and their traumas more involving. But few of the new ideas have any sort of depth or dedication to that cause. Theyre shallow, surface additions that dont add to the story, or change its direction, or reveal anything new.

one character shows how much better this all could have been

The updates in Condons Beauty and the Beast arent exclusively superficial. Beast finally gets a song to himself, and its a powerful musical moment, even when it improbably transforms him from what Belle describes as sweet, and almost kind and so unsure to a bellowing operatic hero, as ostentatious and over-the-top as the evil Gaston. Lumires feather-duster girlfriend Plumette (voiced by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and the living wardrobe Madame Garderobe (Audra McDonald) get slightly larger roles, giving the story a place for actors of color, even if theyre mostly offscreen voices matched to animated objects.

And most significantly, Belles dad Maurice has been upgraded from a wacky cartoon eccentric to a more nuanced character, a grieving widower doing his best to support a headstrong daughter. His embellishments include a sweet (and too short) song of his own, and a history that explains the decisions he faced when Belles mother died. (Of course she did; this is still a Disney movie.) Kevin Kline plays him as sentimental and struggling, and gives him a backbone in the moments where it counts. But more significantly, his backstory is more than an idle joke or a tweaked line. Its an integral part of the story. It affects Belles character, and alters her actions, and leads to a strong new scene that deepens Belles relationship with Beast. It hints at how much better and more committed the other character changes could have been as well.

In an interview with USA Today, actor Josh Gad boasts that the film improves LeFou, a character originally defined by cartoon conceits, by expanding on that, giving him dimension, making him human. Thats a worthy goal that might have made Beauty and the Beast feel less like an empty experiment in visual hyperbole, or at best, a timid toe testing the waters of diversity. But for the most part, the 2017 Beauty and the Beast doesnt follow through on Condons promises about LeFou, or on Gads enthusiastic claims. It doesnt follow through on many of its gambits. Its much more dedicated to copycatting a classic, while making it bigger, louder, and broader. For a $160 million movie, endlessly hyped and trumpeted as a ground-breaking act of creativity and imagination, thats a remarkably small and unworthy goal.

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The Beauty and the Beast remake is a long series of wasted opportunities - The Verge