Belle
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: May 2, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
13
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreApr 29, 2014
Beautifully cast, touchingly played and handsomely mounted, Belle is as close to perfect as any costumed romance has a right to be. Read full review
83
The PlaylistKimber MyersMay 19, 2014
Amma Asante’s Belle has every element that costume drama fans love, but it elevates a standard love story by adding larger historical implications and giving us a new perspective on the era. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyApr 30, 2014
Like "Downton Abbey" but with corsets, culottes, and tricorn hats, Belle subtly skewers the absurd rules and hypocrisies of class. But the real takeaway is Mbatha-Raw. She makes a case for why she ought to be a star. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbyMay 12, 2014
The movie is a moralized historical fantasy, mixing love and politics in Old Hollywood style. Yet I can’t bring myself to be indignant about its inventions. Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who was born in Oxford and has acted since she was a child, speaks her lines with tremulous emotion and, finally, radiant authority. Austen, I think, would have been thrilled. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 8, 2014
Belle is a beautiful period piece, but it's also something more: a study of racism, classism and sexism in 18th-century England. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriMay 5, 2014
Belle does have a clear moral compass, but it refuses easy answers and withholds easy judgments. As such, it feels profoundly human. Read full review
80
TheWrapInkoo KangMay 2, 2014
Belle's extraordinary intelligence is most evident in its slow but satisfying disentanglement of the jumble of privileges and disadvantages that the wealthy, aristocratic, and learned — but also female, half-black, and pitifully sheltered — Dido embodies. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsGraham FullerMay 1, 2014
The serious tone of director Amma Asante’s film goes far in undercutting any gloss. It looks more like a murky Rembrandt than an episode of “Downton Abbey.” Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMay 15, 2014
With stately surroundings and hissable villains, director Amma Assante imbues the finale with such dramatic resonance that Belle becomes a ringing proclamation of human dignity. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMay 9, 2014
Belle, with its country manors and its city slums, its snooty nobles and its fiery idealists, its ballroom dances and barroom conspiracies, brings these themes to a dramatic head: romance and race, privilege and justice. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 8, 2014
Belle isn't a perfect movie; in some ways it's obvious. But even if it's not true to history, it's true to that painting and worthy of its inspiration. Read full review
75
Washington PostStephanie MerryMay 8, 2014
The movie packs a lot in, and the quick pace of early scenes can feel like running on a treadmill, but Belle settles into a nice rhythm. It ends up having all the requisites of a period drama — a strings-heavy soundtrack, lavish costumes and passionate declarations of love — plus a good deal more. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigMay 1, 2014
The layered film's blend of Austen-style romance, courtroom drama and historical look at the British slave trade works surprisingly well, though there are moments — especially involving the conniving suitors — that teeter on melodrama. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedApr 30, 2014
Elegant and understated, Belle is a true story about the effects of slavery on 18th-century England, told in the style of a sweeping romantic saga by Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisMay 1, 2014
The weave of the personal and the political finally proves as irresistible as it is moving, partly because it has been drawn from extraordinary life. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangOct 16, 2013
That the film still works as well as it does is due to not only its polished craftsmanship and disarming comedy-of-manners approach, but also its fascinating insights into the conflicted mindset of British society Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMay 21, 2014
The material is interesting, and the production values are top-notch. Anushia Nieradzik deserves special notice for her costume design; her luxurious dresses in deep shades of purple and magenta race the pulse more than anything particular in the plot or characterization. It’s all quite well done, if only a touch too decorous. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianJeff BakerMay 17, 2014
What's best about Belle is the performance of Ebatha-Raw. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie OgleMay 15, 2014
It still feels a little like a lesson you’re supposed to learn before you can enjoy anything truly satisfying. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereMay 9, 2014
Needless to say, Belle is a handsome piece of selectively reupholstered history, but its lesson on the victories of social progress in England seems almost as narrowly perceived as Dido’s own view of the world from the immaculately trimmed Mansfield lawns. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesBruce IngramMay 8, 2014
When Asante finally closes with a close-up of Belle’s portrait, there’s something in her eyes and her smile that suggests so much more. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyMay 2, 2014
The movie is intelligently written and well-acted, but it doesn’t sit all that comfortably between the two stools of Austenesque Romance and Socially Conscious Drama. Read full review
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