Black Beauty is a wild young mustang, rounded up in the West to be broken for ownership. Iain Glen (\u201cGame of Thrones\u201d) is the craggy rancher in charge of Beauty, and his niece, Jo (Mackenzie Foy), unexpectedly comes to live with him after her parents die. Just like the fiery mustang, she\u2019s been torn away from her family and isn\u2019t in the mood to be comforted.<\/p>\n
Beauty, we know, feels the same, due to an internal narration voiced by Kate Winslet. The comparison is a little ham-fisted \u2014 but then, this is a Disney adaptation, beautiful but frequently treacly.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlack Beauty,\u201d the 1877 novel about a horse\u2019s long and varied life, was written back when horses were a part of everyday experiences. It\u2019s been adapted many times over the years, and in 2020, the story feels substantially more exotic. But there\u2019s never been a time when little girls didn\u2019t love horses, so the decision by writer-director Ashley Avis to make horse and human friend both female seems like a no-brainer (Beauty and Joe are male in the novel). And who better than Winslet to make the noble steed\u2019s inner life really sing?<\/p>\n\n
The film toggles a little awkwardly between Beauty\u2019s narration and Jo\u2019s point of view, until the girl is sidelined for a good stretch of the movie. We accompany Beauty through being bought and sold several times, into increasingly harrowing circumstances, all while Winslet expresses the mustang\u2019s determination to find her way back to Jo.<\/p>\n
One of the purposes of the book was to shine a line on animal cruelty, which is admirable \u2014 but \u201cBlack Beauty\u201d veers so often into the dark and the sad I question how much appeal it\u2019ll really have for the younger set. Still, if your tear ducts need cleaning, this is one holiday film that\u2019ll get the job done.<\/p>\n
Adv<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n \t