Belle (Amma Asante)

[Stay Puft]

BELLE
Dir. Amma Asante

IMDb page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2404181/)

http://i.imgur.com/lRpsdoR.jpg

[Stay Puft]

My reaction from TIFF:


...this an idealistic movie with big speeches and important themes and really, who's going to argue with it? It's the kind of movie where a character yells "slavery is wrong" at the camera and then there's a reaction shot of all the other performers cheering. Case closed. Everybody can go home feeling good. It's not really a bad film for all that, though - the acting is fine, the production values are fine... I'd say the biggest problem is just how flat everything looks. Quite a dull movie visually that just sort of plods along from one scene to the next. It doesn't add up to much more dramatically, either, as the film splits its time between a couple different plot threads, so that the relationship between Dido and John happens more or less because it has to, because it's based on a true story. But again, for all that, the scenes are all well performed and dramatically competent. It's such an earnest film, it's hard to hate... but it's also hard to give a damn. Respectable, forgettable.

[Izzy Black]

Loved this.