Disney+'s Black Beauty: Biggest Differences To The Book - Screen Rant

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Disney+’s adaptation of Black Beauty differs wildly from Anna Sewell’s beloved, eponymous 1877 classic, a book that has been a staple in children’s literature since the late nineteenth century. In the new Disney+ adaptation, which was released in November 2020, writer-director Ashley Avis tackles the age-old narrative from a contemporary perspective, while altering key elements from the book in an attempt to grant it a distinctive identity.

Due to the poignantly evergreen nature of Sewell’s Black Beauty, the book has been the subject of numerous adaptations over the course of the last 100 years or so. Notable versions include Caroline Thompson’s 1994 adaptation, featuring Alan Cumming as the voice of Black Beauty, which garnered a sizeable following despite being a commercial failure.

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Although Disney approaches the classic with the aim to refurbish the source material for current audiences, which is not a negative aspect in itself, this leads to the dilution of key narratorial nuances and overarching themes that the book is known best for. Here are some of the biggest differences between Disney+’s rendition of Black Beauty and Sewell’s book.

Disney+’s Black Beauty Alters The Horse’s Gender & Background

The biggest change carried out by Disney in the adaptation is changing the titular horse’s gender from male to female, as voiced by Kate Winslet in an American accent. Black Beauty’s inner thoughts and perspective are communicated through voice-over narration, which chronicles her tale as a wild mustang who is captured and taken in by John (Ian Glen) in an attempt to train the wild horse (in the novel, Beauty is born into captivity and is raised by a mother who is a working mare). Alteration of a titular character’s gender can work well in specific contexts, especially when the change serves to highlight a prominent socio-political issue or flesh out character aspects in distinct ways. Here, the issue does not quite lie in the gender alteration, but rather the voice-over, which grants a disjointed aura to the film and diminishes Black Beauty as a character.

Disney +’s Black Beauty Changes The Film’s Focus and Setting

Avis shifts the setting of the story from England to the U.S. while crafting gorgeous shots of Beauty running wild in Nevada. Winslet’s voice-over attempts to present the titular horse’s emotions, impressions, and experiences, who forms a bond with Jo (Mackenzie Foy), a kindred soul without a family, who finds solace in Beauty’s company. In the novel, Jo(e) is a boy named Joseph Greene, whose bond with Beauty is not as dramatized as in the film, but is presented as a kind character nonetheless. The original Black Beauty is episodic in nature, chronicling the toils and traumas undergone by Beauty, with the horse being the moral center of the novel. Disney’s adaptation flits between Beauty and Jo, as if unsure as to who the narrative should focus on, lacking the original’s guileless charm and impact storytelling.

Disney+’s Black Beauty Touches Upon Climate Change And Other Issues

As Disney+’s Black Beauty rushes from one episode to the next, the film touches lightly upon Jo’s struggles as an orphaned teenager, who writes about climate change in her school exercise book and dreams of a reunion with beauty. While these issues are prominent in their own right, their treatment comes across as surface-level and inert, as Jo’s angst is underwritten as it makes way into a clichéd daydream of teen romance. Avis also highlights how horses can be instrumental in theory for young, differently-abled individuals, which, while a well-meaning endeavor, is not fleshed out enough to stand out as a meaningful addition to the film’s meandering narrative.

Disney+’s Black Beauty Ignores The Book’s Core Message

Perhaps the most pertinent change in Disney’s adaptation of Black Beauty is how Sewell’s animal welfare plea is watered down, along with the traumas endured by Beauty throughout the novel. This, in turn, diminishes the enduring lessons of emotional strength and perseverance exemplified in the novel, which was penned “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.” Sewell’s portrayal of the plight of working animals is the book’s core political message, which had a tangible impact in reality with the abolition of the cruel practice of checkrein, which caused pain and damage to a horse’s neck. Although Avis’ intentions are rooted in empathy, as she has launched the Wild Beauty Foundation to help highlight key issues faced by horses today, the film fails to capture these emotions in a meaningful way, coming off as an emotionally-stunted tale with no axis to guide it towards the novel’s brilliance.

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About The Author

Debopriyaa Dutta (46 Articles Published)

Debopriyaa Dutta is a content curator, poet, and film critic based in India and a frequent contributor for High On Films. Apart from being a published author, Debopriyaa has been writing professionally since 2014, and holds a Master's degree in English Literature and Theory from the University of Delhi. An ardent fan of cosmic horror and poetic cinema, she enjoys painting, along with reading literary works steeped in morbid nihilism.