I really wanted to like Belle. It’s a important historical topic, based on a true story, and features the always fabulous Tom Wilkinson. But its pacing problems (and the associated script problems) are so extreme and distracting that the movie was more than a bit tedious to sit through. Every concept, every scene, every line is dragged out in an almost agonizing manner, and the dialog – while perhaps not totally empty – is generic and dull enough to exacerbate the problem considerably: not only are they taking forever to say things, it’s not even that interesting when they finally force the words out of their mouths. I swear, with better direction they could have easily tightened this 104 minute movie down to 80 minutes, and probably improved it quite a bit.

As for the acting, Tom Wilkinson is really swimming up stream in this one; he brings as much gravity, warmth, and nuance as he can to the part, but his character is conceived and written very flatly, almost with the emotional weight of a minor character, and there’s only so much he can do to mitigate this fact. Gugu Mbatha-Raw (who was Tom Hanks little friend in Larry Crowne) is earnest and hard-working in the lead role, and Sarah Gadon (the uncrowned princess of costume dramas) is convincing as the beautiful but dimwitted cousin. But I’m getting a little sick of Penelope Wilton and Miranda Richardson, always playing the exact same character in every movie. And Emily Watson continues to strike me as an actress whose heart left her craft so long ago that almost any other actress in her role would be a vast improvement. The young men are all fine, but mainly as hunks of meat, since the script and structure of this film are so messed up there is a very low ceiling on all the performances.

I can’t really recommend this movie. It means well, but they desperately needed to tighten up the script and direction with an eye toward pacing and dramatic impact. Writing some interesting dialog would have helped too!