Film: Belle
Director: Amma Asante
Screenplay: Misan Sagay
Producer: Damian Jones
Distributed by: Twentieth Century Fox
Review by Joy Francis
Ten years after her BAFTA award-winning debut A Way of Life, Amma Asante unveils Belle, an assured, lavish and beautiful costume drama exploring familiar themes of politics, race, class and identity through the eyes of an unconventional heroine.
Set in the late 18th century, Belle tells the extraordinary story of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay, a mixed race girl brought up as the adopted daughter of Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of England, in the grandeur of Kenwood House.
While a child, illegitimate Dido is plucked out of poverty by her father John Lindsay, a Royal Navy Admiral (an emotional Matthew Goode) when her mother, a slave, dies. “I’m here to take you to a good life. A life that you were born into,” he promises. That good life is in the care of her great uncle Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson) and his wife, played by the understated Emily Watson.
Despite agreeing to be her guardian, Lord Mansfield and his wife are initially taken aback when she arrives. “She is black. A detail you chose not to share with us,” Lord Mansfield declares. Before long, Dido is absorbed into the rarefied life of the aristocracy alongside her white “sister-cousin” Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) who has been abandoned with no money by her wayward father.
As a young woman, Dido (a likeable Gugu Mbatha-Raw) discovers the father she barely knew has died and made her an heiress with a £2,000 a year fortune. This windfall secures her future, and the possibility of attracting a husband, though the drawback of her being black is never far from the surface.
Dido’s life at Kenwood House constantly reflects these contradictions. She is loved, pampered, educated and sheltered from the outside world, which is consumed by the immoral slave trade. Yet she cannot eat with the servants as she is above them, or dine with her family in the company of guests, as it isn’t ‘polite’. The consolation prize is joining them afterwards in the parlour.
Dido and Elizabeth are bought up as equals, with Lord Mansfield commissioning the now famous painting of them both. Yet Elizabeth is coached for her ‘coming out’ in London, while Dido is offered the keys to Kenwood House, alluding to a future of spinsterhood like Lady Mary Murray (an energetic and funny Penelope Wilton), Lord Mansfield’s unmarried sister. Despite her privileged status and luxury lifestyle, Dido is a lady in name only. As a result she begins a journey to define herself.
The film exposes the double standards of class with great wit and insight. Miranda Richardson’s character, the scheming social climber Lady Ashford, embodies the callous nature of the class system with its selective colour-blindness based on wealth. When Lady Ashford first sees Dido she doesn’t hold back her disdain: “Good lord, a negro. I had no idea she would be so, black.” But after hearing of Dido’s good fortune, she turns on a dime and the once unacceptable “mulatto” couldn’t be more suitable for her broke eldest son Oliver (James Norton).
Emotive themes such as race, class, slavery and misogyny, are explored with confidence. Despite her outward feistiness and ability to navigate the nonsensical rules of aristocratic society, there is a powerful moment when Dido’s inner conflict surfaces as she clutches, scratches and pulls at her brown skin. Her social status, while enviable, comes at a price.
Belle is also about love and all its flaws (Lord Mansfield’s over-protectiveness of Dido) and its splendour, in the shape of handsome reverend’s son and aspiring lawyer John Davinier (an intense Sam Reid). His blossoming and challenging relationship with Dido has Jane Austen etched all over it.
Of lowly status and high ambition, John’s new world emancipator is pitted against Lord Mansfield’s legal titan in an enlightening war of words over the appalling case of the Zong slave ship. Over 140 slaves were thrown overboard on the captain’s orders under the guise of saving the ship from disease and ruin. The film thoughtfully unpicks the shocking and little known truth that slaves could be killed for an insurance claim.
Packed to the beautifully gilded ceiling with a stellar and seasoned cast, the young Turks hold their own in such esteemed company. Mbatha-Raw is watchable and engaging (though occasionally a bit too wide eyed). Reid has enough zeal to charge the national grid while Gadon infuses Elizabeth with a sense of modernity and pathos.
Though not perfect, there is very little to knock in Belle. Visually sumptuous. Fabulous acting. Unexpectedly funny. An unfamiliar slice of history told with modern flair. Asante’s quest to uncover the hidden story behind the now revered painting of Dido and Elizabeth, which used to hang at Kenwood House, has been revisioned with great care.
When you see the painting, you will understand why this film had to be made.
Belle is on nationwide release from Friday 13 June 2014.