Calling all Jane Austen junkies: This one’s for you. The issues of class and gender that create such delicious 18th-century drama in Austen novels and films are compounded by race in Belle, which tells the true story of Dido Elizabeth Belle, the daughter of a British naval officer and an enslaved black woman. Raised in the home of her great-uncle, William Murray, Lord Chief Justice of England, she challenges her contemporaries’ ideas about equality and influences Murray’s ruling on a key court case regarding slavery.
Navigating the elite social scene as an heiress who happens to be half-black is a confusing endeavor for Dido. The situation baffles her family and potential suitors as well. Only her cousin, Elizabeth Murray, and her great-uncle’s law apprentice, John Davinier, seem immune to prejudice. When William Murray is tasked with ruling on the legality of a drowned slave ship’s insurance claim, John agitates for him to condemn slavery outright and pulls Dido into his campaign. Meanwhile, the two fall in love. Their romance is perhaps the movie’s weakest point; although John (Sam Reid) and Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) are a perfect ideological match, their passionate words can’t mask a lack of on-screen chemistry.
Should You See It? Yes. —R.K.