Stockholm Syndrome a Go-Go

I feel for the animation team at Disney. When the studio decided that they wanted to produce direct-to-video continuations of their popular films, it left the actual animation teams with the unenviable task of trying to find a way to continue stories that had already concluded. How do you make a sequel to Beauty and the Beast when the film (spoilers) ends with the Beast becoming a prince again and all of the denizens of his castle transforming back into their human forms. The whole magic of the film was that the castle was populated with animated furniture and magical objects. Any sequel, one would think, would lack all that magic.

I guess it was inevitable, then, that the team would come back with a story that didn’t take place after, or before, the story of Beauty and the Beast but during it. An interquel that said, “hey, there was a fair span of months here where Belle and the Beast were living together. Surely we can find a way to tell more stories during this span.” On the one hand, I can appreciate the thought process. You need the magic of the setting to really sell any kind of continuation of Beauty and the Beast, and the only way to get that magic back (short of having someone come along and curse the castle again) is to set any future works during the long time during their courtship.

Because it is a long time. In the film it’s practically a whole season that Belle is gone. It’s handled in just a few moments during a montage, where the Beast acts kindly to her, they work out their differences, and suddenly they’re in love. It’s fast, but it does work, however you can also see that it takes place over a few months (or a very fast snowstorm, I guess) so there’s room to say, “this montage actually left a lot of their relationship off to the side.” That works, in theory, and it lets any continuation act as a kind of interquel exploring their burgeoning love.

The flaw here, though, is that even with this interquel setup, taking that short time frame and fleshing it out further, we’re still left with the fact that it all ends at the same place. We know where this relationship is going. It’s not as if Belle is going to suddenly realize she can’t love the Beast because, what, he hates Christmas or something. No, whatever new adventures we get set during this time period, there’s no way the end result can change or that any more nuance can be added to these two characters. Functionally they’re locked in amber, and all we can do is watch further adventures that repeat beats of the story we already know. It drains all the fun out of the setting despite any intent from the animators to say otherwise.

And yes, the Beast hating Christmas is the theme of the story. We’re introduced to Belle during that winter at the enchanted castle, longing for a bit of holiday cheer. Christmas has almost arrived, but no one in the castle is doing anything to celebrate it. Naturally Belle, being the headstrong girl that she is, decides to put together a proper Christmas celebration, even though the denizens of the castle try to warn her off. That’s because the Beast hates Christmas since, as we learn, it was at Christmas that the evil witch showed up and cursed him, turning him into the Beast.

Once the Beast hears that Belle is putting together a Christmas celebration, he gets upset. But he also has a voice in his ear, from the organist (who is currently an organ), Forte (voiced by Tim Curry). Forte, unlike everyone else in the castle, is actually perfectly happy being enchanted. He has powers and gifts as a magical organ that he never had as a man. If the Beast falls for Belle, all of his special gifts would go away and he’d go back to being normal. So he whispers in the Beast’s ear, attempting to turn the Beast from the girl, all so the current status quo can be maintained. Will the Beast listen to Forte or will the power of love sway him and turn him into a better, Christmas-loving person.

Of course, we know how this plays out because this is an interquel taking place in the middle of Beauty and the Beast. Forte, wonderfully played by Curry as he may be, simply cannot win this one because the fates of Belle and the Beast was preordained over in the previous film. This little side adventure feels like it’s over before it even begins all because of the fact that there really isn’t any place for this film to go that isn’t covered by the previous film. New characters, new songs, and a revised timeline can’t change that.

In fact, in many ways this film actively makes the first one worse. In the original movie it felt like the Beast was trying to be a better person almost as soon as he took Belle into the castle. Yes, he functionally kidnapped her, but their relationship very quickly shifted away from a master/prisoner dynamic into a meeting of equals. The film tries very hard to avoid any semblance of Stockholm syndrome, making it clear that the Beast only wants Belle there if she wants to be there, and that she could leave if she so chose. They find each other, and there’s mutual respect between them.

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, though, makes it feel much more like a Stockholm syndrome relationship. The Beast yells and screams and acts awful, and then the second he gives Belle bedroom eyes all is forgiven. No real apology, no explanation for his behavior. They don’t have a long heart-to-hear where they learn to care and share. He just says, “forgive me,” once and she melts. It makes her look like a doe-eyed prisoner already under the sway of an abuser, and it works against the subtle nuances of the relationship set up in the original film.

Also, Forte is a nothing character. While I love Tim Curry, and I like what he tries to do with the character through just his voice acting alone, it doesn’t change the fact that Forte really has no bearing on the relationship. He’s a character added in here to act as a villain, simply because the story needs a villain, but Forte is a bad fit. He’s an organ trapped in a room, unable to escape. All he can do is sing and tempt, but he’s nowhere near as interesting or charismatic (despite all the attempts from Curry) as Gaston. He doesn’t add enough to the story to justify his sudden inclusion in the franchise when he didn’t exist before.

And all of this is for a pretty bland story about the healing power of Christmas. It feels very mercenary. “We need a Beauty and the Beast continuation, but if we also set it during Christmas then it can be a family favorite year after year. We’ll sell a ton of videos and DVDs.” For that to happen, though, the story needs to be good. It needs wonder, and delight. It needs magic. Despite being set during the time when the castle was still magical, this film lacks any sense of real magic. It’s a poor substitute for the real thing, a bland copy of the wonder that existed in Beauty and the Beast. For all that they tried to do, the creative workarounds that the artists managed to figure out so they could make a continuation that still had the magical castle from the original film, this movie lacks everything that made that film special. It honestly would have been better if a new witch had simply come along and cursed the castle again. That would have worked better than the mess in Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.