BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Gugu is Belle of the ball in feisty period drama
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Gugu Mbatha Raw shines as real-life heroine Dido Elizabeth Belle
Gugu Mbatha Raw said that during the making of the film Belle she felt like a Jane Austen heroine.
Only Belle, or Dido Elizabeth Belle as she was known, wasn’t a fictional character.
Belle’s mother was an African slave, and her father, Sir John Lindsay, a Royal Navy captain. She was raised by her father’s uncle, the Earl of Mansfield — then the Lord Chief Justice.
Lord Mansfield and his family were undoubtedly kind to Belle but she was regarded as an oddity who wasn’t allowed to attend formal dinners, though she was allowed sit with the ladies afterwards, where she was always patronised by guests who seemed surprised to discover she could hold a conversation, or play the piano.
‘But she was feisty,’ Gugu told me on set, as director Amma Asante set up a shot involving her, Tom Wilkinson (Mansfield) and Sam Reid, as the young lawyer who loves Belle.
‘She realises that the Mansfields protected her. She’s not had to deal with the issue of race before and it comes as a shock to her when some treat her like dirt. But she learns how things work.
‘It has this Jane Austen feel to it, but it’s grounded in a political and social context,’ Gugu explained.
‘There are things going on other than this “Who shall we marry?” fluff.’
The director added: ‘Me, Gugu and all the other black girls who are involved in the film have watched all the film adaptations of Austen’s stories.
'We’ve dreamt of either playing one of those heroines, or being able to direct a film — and yet we need to be able to hang our hat on a hook where it makes sense.’
The feisty character is the daughter of an African slave and a Royal Navy captain who was raised by the Earl of Mansfield
Well, I must tell you that, black or white, Belle makes the most glorious sense in the world, and Gugu is a fantastic and determined leading lady.
The film will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and I hope Clare Stewart, artistic chief of the BFI London Film Festival, books it for the LFF in October.
Annoyingly, Belle doesn’t go on general release until next year, which is a shame because I would have enjoyed seeing Gugu in the forthcoming awards season.
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