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The anonymity of the online world often makes it the perfect place to hide—or to take on a completely new personality. And in the animated virtual adventure Belle, a timid teenager finds herself living a completely different, more glamorous life in an enormous virtual world.
Belle creates a fabulous new life with Suzu (voiced by Kaho Nakamura), a shy high school student who’s been mourning her mother’s death since she was a young girl. Once an outgoing, musical little girl, she now remains in the shadows. But then she discovers U, a virtual world where she can be anyone she wants to be. In U, she finds her voice again as Belle, an overnight singing sensation. But when a concert is interrupted by a beast known as the Dragon, she becomes determined to track him down and learn more about him.
In the Dragon, Suzu recognizes the pain that she has suffered—and she cancels all of Belle’s performances to go on a quest through U to find him and understand him. Outside of U, meanwhile, she faces her own everyday problems: the distance that’s grown between her and her father, her crush on her childhood friend, the constant teen gossip of the kids around her.
Suzu’s two lives are vastly different: different personalities, different adventures, and even different animation. The art and style perfectly depict the two parts of Suzu’s life—from the traditional animation of her real life to the imagination and flashy CGI of her life inside U. And that makes Belle a visual delight.
The story, however, falls short. Wrapped up inside Suzu’s story of shyness and grief—and her story of virtual stardom—is a twist on the classic tale of Beauty and the Beast, borrowing heavily from Disney’s story and animation (right down to the ballroom scene). Though the similarities make for a fun surprise, the storyline feels like a random addition to the story—a clever twist taken a bit too far (and taking a bit too much time). And it seems as though writer/director Mamoru Hosoda got so carried away with creating his own version of the Disney classic that he gave up on developing the rest of the story. And, in the end, it just doesn’t fit together especially well.
Belle is certainly a visual spectacle, mixing traditional animation and CGI while traveling back and forth from the real world to the virtual world. The story, too, creates a mix of reality and imaginary, but it just ends up feeling too long and unfocused.
Belle opens in theaters on January 14, 2022.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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