Movie Review: 'Belle' Explores Grief and Healing with Beauty and Grace

Belle left me a wreck by the time it was over. The movie about a young woman rediscovering her voice years after the death of her mother, hit me like a ton of bricks. Critics try to be as objective as possible but as someone who lost his mother 8 years ago, around the same timeframe that main character Suzu has suffered the death of her mother, my objectivity melted away in a sea of cathartic tears. Suzu’s journey does not resemble me in any other way and yet that shared grief is an unbreakable bond I have with this character.

The main character of Belle is named Suzu. Suzu has been grieving the loss of her mother for nearly a decade and has retreated from life. Suzu gains a chance at a new life with the launch of a new fully interactive and physically immersive form of social media called U. U posits a technology that allows users to create a beautiful avatar and fully embody that avatar right down to physically being able to touch and feel things inside this virtual world.

Another aspect of U is that the A.I learns about the users strengths and weaknesses and enhances them, making strengths and talents more prominent in each user. For Suzu, this means enhancing her already beautiful singing voice. Taking on the persona of a pink haired pop star and calling herself Belle, Suzu is able to sing with confidence and passion for the first time since her mother died and with the anonymity of her avatar protecting her fragile self-confidence.

Suzu is aided by her best friend, Hiroka, a computer wiz who helps to spread Belle’s music all over the app and into the real world. Hiroka’s effort turns Belle into the most talked about star in U until a major concert appearance is ruined by the appearance of The Dragon. Who is the Dragon? He’s a fighting avatar who has become the most successful and vilified fighter in all of the U. Belle finds herself drawn to The Dragon, specifically a cape he wears that acts as a second skin that is covered in bruises, symbolic of the real bruises he has suffered in the real world.

The dynamic between Belle and The Dragon is a very thinly veiled Beauty and the Beast scenario, right down to The Dragon having his own castle in U, symbolic flowers, and a Gaston-like villain who is determined to destroy The Dragon, claiming that The Dragon has broken the rules of order in U. Helping The Dragon becomes Suzu’s own healing journey as her mother had died saving a young girl who was trapped in the midst of a flood.

So incredible is the movie Belle that not only does Suzu grieve the loss of her mother, she’s driven herself so far inside emotionally because she feels ashamed about wishing her mother had not been a hero. Part of Suzu’s journey is accepting that helping people, regardless of the consequences to yourself, is worth sacrificing for. That is a powerhouse message and director Mamoru Hosada never misses a step as he crafts this emotionally complex and wonderfully rich story.

While there are remarkable and heart wrenching emotions at play in Belle, the movie is far from grim. The gorgeous animation enlivens everything while the smart script uses minor subplots and supporting characters to provide uplifting romance and comic relief that never impinges upon the bigger themes at play. The combination of photo realistic backgrounds and traditional anime character designs is often breathtaking, indeed every frame of Belle could be a painting.

But, as I mentioned earlier, I am not an objective critic of Belle. The emotions of grief and shame in play in the character of Suzu are so palpable and raw for me that I can’t experience the movie the same way as you might. When Belle looks to heaven and seems to hear her mother’s voice, I become a quivering mess of emotions, thinking of my own mother and the hole in my life that cannot be filled. Don’t get me wrong, I am not sad or lost in my grief, it occupies a healthy place in my psyche where my memories of my mother are forever bathed in love. But, like anyone else, when I am reminded of the fact of mother's death, I get emotional, I can't help it.

Sometimes when I am confronted with a work of art regarding characters dealing with the loss of their mother, I get a little extra emotional, you might call it, triggered. But this will never stop me from connecting with art. The profound sadness that accompanies my grief is easily leavened by memories of love and the constant support my mother always gave me and would give me if she were here. This type of emotional connection to art can be painful but when that work of art is as transcendent and beautiful as Belle, there is a strong, heady, mixture of grief and joy that becomes potent and it actually it makes me feel more alive if that makes sense.

I may be a white, cis-male in my 40s who has rarely interacted with anime or the culture of anime but I am nonetheless moved by the universal story of love and healing that is the heart of Belle. I’m always going to feel that loss and certain movies will bring that emotion forward but the best movies, movies like Belle, offer as much comfort and warmth as they offer a reminder of my pain and loss. That’s art, sometimes objectivity doesn’t matter as much as vulnerability and an earnest, honest expression of your feelings.

Belle will arrive in theaters nationwide on January 14th, 2022.