Okay, so I have a lot of feelings about this, so I’m going to share.
I love a lot of moments in the new Beauty and the Beast, and there are so many lines that I greatly enjoyed, whether they be lifted from the original film or added to the new script. However, there’s one in particular that stuck out to me, and while it seems like a minor and insignificant moment, I have to admit it’s my absolute favorite line in the whole film. Which one am I talking about?
“I’m sorry I ever called your father a thief.”
This just resonated with me so much, and it was the moment where I truly understood that this version of the Beast had changed. It gave his choice to free Belle and let her go save her father more depth than in the cartoon. (As wonderful and moving as that original moment is!)
See, the thing is that a lot of the Beast’s problems come from his inability to look past outward appearances, and he bases his entire opinion of a person on how their first impression seems to him. The obvious point here is when the Enchantress punishes him for not allowing a poor, ugly old lady to sleep in his castle, but we see this pattern repeated when the Beast imprisons Maurice for taking a rose, believing Maurice deserves to be punished for being a “thief.” He feels disdain towards Maurice and even Belle at first, even going so far as to say, “She’s the daughter of a common thief. What kind of person do you think that makes her?” In the Beast’s eyes, Belle is not worthy of his respect, because he thinks that common thieves are common thieves, and nothing more.
However, you see his opinion towards Belle start to change when she helps him back inside after he’s mauled by wolves, when he was probably expecting her to just run off and leave him to be eaten alive. They connect, they grow closer, all of that loveliness we expect from this story. He starts to see Belle as a normal person, with her own thoughts and feelings and loved ones, and as a result, he too begins to change thanks to her influence. He realizes the error of his ways, which is what the Enchantress wanted.
But the thing that makes the Beast truly feel remorse and understand the issues with his behavior? Learning about Belle’s parents. Suddenly, once he sees what happened to Belle’s mother and learns what Maurice did to protect his daughter, he realizes that Maurice is not a bad person by any means, and is much more than just a “common thief.” Something as minor as taking a rose as a gift for your daughter seems so insignificant next to what this small family has been through. Maurice just wanted to make his daughter happy, and Belle’s devotion to her father by taking his place in a life sentence makes perfect sense. The Beast realizes that these people are humans who truly love and care for one another, who would do anything to keep each other safe and happy. What’s more, the reason Belle is in this situation in the first place is because the Beast decided to punish Maurice just for loving his daughter.
So…the Beast says sorry. Sorry for not looking past the fact that Maurice was plucking a rose from his garden. Sorry for jumping to conclusions. Sorry for being the awful monster he was before. The Beast knows how wrong he was.
I think this is exactly what’s on his mind when the Beast chooses to let Belle go. His own wants and needs need to be pushed aside for Belle’s own wellbeing; this isn’t Belle’s issue. Belle wasn’t the one who placed them all under a curse, so why should she be kept from her father in order to break a spell? As mentioned earlier, Belle’s only here in the first place because of her father. The Beast understands how much Belle loves Maurice and how much Maurice loves Belle, and with his newfound ability to see the thief more deeply, he lets Belle go. He doesn’t want Maurice to be put in harm’s way thanks to his own terrible actions, and it’s not just a desire to make Belle happy that factors into his decision, but also concern and remorse for Maurice, the “common thief” he initially despised just for existing.
In essence: The Beast doesn’t just change in this version thanks to a woman’s love, but also thanks to a newfound compassion for those he initially writes off. Now, he’ll be sure to think twice before turning a poor person away into the bitter cold. Now, he’ll learn more about a man’s character before giving him a life sentence for taking a rose. Now, he can see the world as more than just props under the mercy of his own selfish opinions. Being introduced to Belle opens the Beast up to a whole new reality that helps him overcome the error of his ways, and Maurice is a huge catalyst in this realization.
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