Belle

Ratings: 7.6/10

Film Class: C+

Genre: Drama

Growing up in a white dominated era, the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Captain is raised by her aristocratic great-uncle, Lord Mansfield. Inspired by a true story, Belle had to endure the prevalent social prejudice, but in the process found true love.

Belle isn’t your “ordinary” half-black young woman. Head-strong and vocally cultured, she isn’t afraid to speak up and to question any injustices. The pace accelerated when a case about a mass killing of black slaves on board a ship was brought to the attention of Lord Mansfield, who was also the Lord Chief Justice, aka a highly influential person.

It’s a case of whether killing the slaves was intentional, or was it not. It’s a simple plot, with the entire movie telling the story from Belle and her beau's point of views, and gradually focusing on that pivotal case which would forever change the course on slavery, bringing an end to it in 18^th century England.

The trailer kinda sums up the first quarter of the movie, showing important snippets here and there. What was bad wasn't watching the same scenes again, but that they felt like an extended version of the trailer. The scenes cut off rather abruptly, scripts were disjointed, and there was a total lack of character empathy.

Thankfully things took a turn for the better. Even though the dialogue were not well connected, each scene packed a powerful, thought provoking line or two which sounded impressive to both the listening audience, and the spaced-out ones.

I did go “wow” a couple of times and was rather impressed by the substance of the scripting. Belle was less of a love story, and more of a battle of words. Intellectually stimulating and emotionally provocative, this period drama will... will... for once... I'm at a loss for words...