Black Beauty.
Movie Review by Michaela Calabrese.
Three years before I was born, in 1994, an adaptation of Anna Sewell’s novel Black Beauty was released; it starred Sean Bean, David Thewlis, and Jim Carter, and featured narration by Alan Cumming. The story appeared simple at face value: a horse was born on a small farm, got sold to a wealthy family once he was trained, and developed a close bond with a stable hand named Joe. Black Beauty’s life took him from one owner to another, some kind and some cruel, and all the while he dreamed of reuniting with Joe someday. Through hardships, abuses, and one particularly devastating death (this was not a film to sanitize harsh realities), lessons were learned and Beauty fought to maintain his optimism; even when it seemed he would never see Joe again.
Disney+ just released its adaptation this month.
Maybe I’m being a little harsh. There are some things to admire here. The shots are beautifully composed, there’s a lovely use of temperature to denote seasons passing, and the performances are fine (for the most part). Iain Glen and Kate Winslet in particular are clearly doing their best to make their characters feel fleshed out. When Kate, acting as the voice of Beauty, needs to sound upset, she does. Most of the time, I felt like I was being read to by a very practiced teacher. Everything comes out smooth and it’s rare to hear a line come out flat. Glen as John Manly doesn’t have much to do, but again I didn’t hate him; he’s the archetypal Wise Old Man to Makenzie Foy’s gender-swapped, wide-eyed dreamer version of Joe—now Jo.
Where they, and the rest of the cast, suffer is when they’re compared to the ’94 film. Winslet sounds like she’s reading a book where Alan Cumming sounded like he was really telling the audience the story of his life. Iain Glen is the standard old mentor where Jim Carter’s John Manly was his own unique character. He’d get frustrated, he’d get scared, he’d snap at Joe when Joe messed up. He had a job he loved to do, even when it broke his heart. Through him, the audience could feel how tightly connected everyone at Birtwick Park was; so when everyone is forced to go their separate ways, it’s genuinely heartbreaking.
And Jo? Oh, Jo…
Simply put: Joe in the 1994 adaptation wasn’t in much of the narrative. He was forced to leave Beauty behind and go on with his life. Though we didn’t see it, we knew this is because he had to work to earn his happy ending. He had to mature.
Jo in the remake? Just kind of…whines until she gets what she wants. She makes a big deal about earning the money to buy Black Beauty, which is great except:
- Gordon stabs her in the back and sells Black Beauty out from under her even when she does earn enough money.
- When she does show up in the end, she’s been given everything she ever wanted and we don’t get the sense that she’s matured! She marries rich, buys Birtwick Park, is able to just take Beauty, and it’s clear she’s learned nothing!
At the beginning of the 1994 adaptation, Joe was well-meaning but clumsy. He was trying to help his uncle John and had a lot to learn. He was out of his depth, even accidentally making Beauty sick with cold water and no blankets after Beauty got caught in a storm. He was a harmless, stupid kid. Giving up Beauty was something he had to do. Beauty wasn’t his, he couldn’t afford to buy him, and though they bonded, circumstances couldn’t be avoided. That’s life. Joe took the first stepping stone into adulthood, leaving his best friend in the hands of strangers.
At the beginning of the remake, Jo is a troubled orphan. She bonds with Beauty and instantly becomes an angel with crystal clear morals. Remake Jo is conned out of Black Beauty (hence no real teachable moment) and gets her back in the end not through luck, determination, or a random happy accident, but through marrying rich. Jo’s character development is marrying rich. Solid.
Alright, I’m done complaining about the characters. What about the story? I said at the beginning that this is a Frankenstein’s Monster of other stories, so let me show you how that breaks down. The beginning is a carbon copy of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. A new baby is born in a herd of mustangs and must take up a leadership role. Spirit is shown running with the herd, learning from his mother, and even talks about how running feels like flying. How did Beauty begin? Well, a new baby is born into a herd of mustangs and must take up a leadership role. Beauty is shown running with the herd and yeah, you get the point.
Then, we get to the Flicka portion of the film. In the original, Flicka is captured and taken into captivity, where she’s seen as spirited and dangerous. She meets the misunderstood Katie, a young woman who seems to be the only person who can understand her feelings. They connect based on their sense of loneliness and that neither of them truly belongs. When financial hardships come, Flicka is leased out and ultimately sold to a rich snob who treats her horribly. Katie vows to get Flicka back however she can. What happens in Beauty? Beauty is captured by farmers and brought into captivity, where she’s seen as spirited and dangerous. She meets the misunderstood Jo—I don’t need to spell it out for you.
Only an hour and ten minutes into this hour and thirty minute film, we finally get to the Black Beauty segment; only instead of being set in the nineteenth century like the original, now it’s set in modern day. Which means half of what’s shown makes no sense and half is shoehorned in simply because it was in the original story. The Terry storyline is just long enough to encompass the Beauty is Sick plot point, the Jerry storyline would have audiences believing a healthy thirtyish man in good shape could still die of a cold in 2020 (because…modern medicine doesn’t…exist in this universe? I don’t know, it takes place in New York. CVS’s here are a dime a dozen!), the film doesn’t know if horse-drawn carriages in Central Park are good or bad so it just shrugs and says they’re both, and there’s a completely nonsensical moment where a dead horse under a sheet is pulled through the streets of New York City IN A WAGON IN 2020!! Not a truck, not an 18-wheeler, a full-on wooden wagon! Exactly how many health and safety violations that would break, I can’t say!
This review is already running long, so I’ll just say don’t watch this movie. The DVD of the 1994 version is $8 on Amazon.
Or hey, just read the original book. There’s a novel idea. This is, after all, Nerds who Read.
Michaela Calabrese was born and raised in Agawam, MA and is now living her dream of making movies in New York City. Her twelve-minute short film, Periculum, has been submitted to the Garden State Film festival. Please give your generous support to Michaela's projects at GoFundMe.com.
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