Belle, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T. Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Wilkinson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Emily Watson, Sam Reid, Tom Felton, James Norton, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, Sarah Gadon, Matthew Goode, Lauren Julien-Box, Natasha Williams, Alan McKenna, Timothy Walker, David Gant, Charlotte Roach, Rupert Wickham, Bethan Mary-James, Alana Ramsey, Alex Jennings, Daniel Wilde, Susan Brown, James Northcote, Andrew Woodall, Edmund Short, Christopher Middleton.

Pride meets extremism prejudice in Misan Sagay’s well written script for the film Belle.

Belle is the sort of film you could imagine, with extreme ease, actors such as Kate Winslet or Kiera Knightley having made enquires about having a part in at one time or another, yet such inclusion would be to detract from the bitterness and anger the cinema goer will undoubtedly feel at the unpleasant subject that stalks the story throughout. Whilst Britain must take a huge responsibility for its part in the slave trade, it is down to forward thinking men and women such as William Murray, Dido Elizabeth Belle and John Danvinier that at least made the first giant step in the abolition of slavery; at least in Britain.

Whereas Pride and Prejudice is a question of class and manners, Belle is a question of humanity, of how we treat other human beings and how we take responsibility for someone’s actions against those that cause people pain and even death.

Belle is lavish, the camera seemingly enjoying the long sweeps of the grounds doubling as the home of William Murray, (1st Earl of Mansfield and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales) but it also, with absolute discretion by the Director Amma Asante, captures the mood that split the country during the hearing into the Zong massacre. The case was a legal precedent, it started the chain of events that led to William Wilberforce to become the hero and statesman that he was, yet it also might not have happened had it not been for the producing of a child, Belle, between a black woman and Captain Sir John Lindsay, played far too briefly by Matthew Goode.

It is hard to imagine Tom Wilkinson ever turning a bad performance in any film, you are more likely to find I.T.V. doing away with advertising breaks, and in Belle, Mr. Wilkinson gives a consummate performance, quality as always. He was joined by a disturbing act of vile intent but excellently captured by Tom Felton, Miranda Richardson doing what she does best, acting everybody who shares film time with her, completely off the screen, a very good performance by Sam Reid, who’s affection for Belle and his radicalism to changing the law garnered great regard and the heroine of the piece, the superb Gugu Mbatha-Raw who shone with rising frustrated wrath and fury and who has come such a long way since her fledgling appearances in Doctor Who during David Tennant’s era. Such was her enlightened performance, the anguish in her face beautifully framed as she learns of the fate of the slaves on board The Zong.

True congratulations though must go to the writer and director though for keeping the story going, for showing the 18th Century life with all the trapping available to a young woman who had money during the period but who also was kept hidden in social events because of the talk of her existence.

Not as hard hitting as 12 Years A Slave but still just as chilling, a film in which to remind yourself of the deplorability of humanity and the hope that can be found therein.

Ian D. Hall