The Book Was Sitting Beside Me
I watched the 2020 Black Beauty with my battered childhood copy on the sofa arm. Bad idea, maybe. Every large change announced itself. Yet ten minutes in, I stopped keeping score and watched the mare’s ears. This is not a faithful Victorian adaptation. It is a modern rescue story borrowing the novel’s spine, and it works better once it admits that.
Jo and Beauty Learn Each Other
Teenage Jo arrives angry and grieving at her uncle’s training ranch. Beauty, a captured mustang, arrives frightened and harder to read. Their trust grows through repetition rather than one magical touch: standing nearby, backing off, trying again. Mackenzie Foy can overplay Jo’s defiance, but her quieter scenes have the awkward sincerity of someone who would rather brush a horse than explain herself.
Beauty Is More Than a Pretty Silhouette
The horses portraying Beauty give the movie its best acting. A turned head, a hesitant step toward a hand, the tension in a neck before a trailer ride—those details carry more weight than several speeches. The camera often stays low and close, letting us register mass, breath, flies, dust, and the constant work involved in handling a large prey animal.
Kate Winslet’s narration is measured and warm, but I wanted less of it. Beauty sometimes explains fear after the horse has already shown it perfectly. Worse, the voice can make animal behavior seem tidier than it is. The physical performance is specific; the inner monologue is broad. Trust the mare. She has the scene.
Modernizing the Cruelty Changes the Story
The film replaces cabs and bearing reins with auctions, neglect, fashionable owners, and unstable placement. That makes it accessible, especially among family-friendly animal movies, but also less severe. The book’s power came from showing cruelty as an ordinary system. Here, mistreatment is more often attached to obviously bad people, so the moral arithmetic becomes easier than real life.
What Top Review Pages Emphasize
Prominent reviews focus on the gender change for Beauty, the contemporary setting, Winslet’s narration, and the movie’s sentimental pull. My Black Beauty review lands between the camps: the updates are not sacrilege, but the repeated separations become rushed. The ranch scenes breathe; later episodes feel checked off.
Quick Competitive Snapshot
Compared with the 1994 film, this version is gentler, brighter, and much looser with Anna Sewell. Compared with glossy horse romances, it pays unusual attention to fear and handling. For anyone searching animal movie review Black Beauty, the short answer is simple: strong horse craft, uneven adaptation, sincere heart.
Best Points, Weaker Points, and Audience Fit
Best:
- Patient early bonding scenes.
- Expressive, well-photographed horses.
- A clear rescue and welfare message.
Weaker:
- Narration explains visible feelings.
- The second half races through owners.
- Villains are drawn too plainly.
Audience fit:
- Horse-mad children and teens.
- Families comfortable with mild neglect themes.
- Book fans open to major changes.
FAQ
No. It moves the story to modern America, makes Beauty a mare, and substantially changes characters and events.
It includes grief, animal neglect, separation, and danger, but avoids graphic injury and ends hopefully.
No. Viewers hear Beauty’s narrated thoughts, while people in the story hear only normal horse sounds.
Final Verdict
I’d watch it again for the first ranch hour and the alert, beautifully handled horses. I would not hand it to a child as a replacement for the book. My clear take: a good modern horse film and a compromised adaptation, with enough honest observation to survive the syrup.
★★★★☆
