July 29, 1994| There have been many other film and TV versions of Black Beauty, Anna Sewell’s much-loved tale of a noble horse and the people who gallop in and out of his life. But the latest adaptation, written and directed by Caroline Thompson, is perhaps the most faithful of the lot. Certainly, it is the first to preserve the point of view offered in the original 1877 novel, which Sewell wrote as the title character’s first-person narrative.
Presenting an animal’s point of view is nothing new for Thompson, whose previous credits include the screenplay for Homeward Bound: The Incredible
Journey, a live-action movie in which Michael J. Fox, Sally Field and Don Ameche provided the voices for amazingly resourceful house pets. Not coincidentally, Thompson also is an experienced hand at sympathetic depictions of outsiders — she also wrote screenplays for Edward Scissorhands, The Addams Family and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Black Beauty, her debut effort as a director, is far more traditional in style, tone and content than most of her earlier projects. But it, too, benefits greatly from her ability to look at the world through fresh eyes, and find a new voice to tell a familiar story.
Thompson’s Black Beauty is a handsomely crafted and emotionally involving drama with an absolutely exquisite musical score by Danny Elfman. Some transitions could be smoother, and a few scenes seem unduly rushed. Overall, though, this is one family movie that has more than enough going for it to captivate audiences of all ages.
British actor Alan Cumming provides the voice for the title character, who is introduced in comfortable retirement after a life of hard work and sudden reversals in Victorian England. In flashback, Black Beauty recalls, among other things, an idyllic youth on a country estate, a painful career as a carriage-puller for vain aristocrats (Peter Cook and Eleanor Bron, both marvelously snooty), and a bittersweet interlude as a taxi horse in working-class London. Anyone who saw David Thewlis as the misanthropic windbag in Mike Leigh’s Naked will be pleasantly surprised by his endearing performance here as the sweet-natured taxi driver who never pushes Black Beauty too hard too often.
During her protagonist’s more unhappy recollections, Thompson doesn’t shy away from depicting the human cruelty that Sewell wrote about so passionately and disapprovingly in her novel. In fact, there are fleeting moments when Black Beauty achieves an intensity reminiscent of Au Hasard, Balthazar, Robert Bresson’s 1966 masterwork about a mistreated donkey who finds peace only in death. But, mind you, these are fleeting moments. And even then, nothing ever gets so out of hand that small children will be left tearful and traumatized.
Any tears that get shed during Thompson’s Black Beauty will be tears of joy as the movie remains faithful to Sewell’s happy ending.
