Mamoru Hosoda’s gorgeous fairy tale Belle makes an optimist’s case for the internet

polygon.com:

The kid-friendly moral of Beauty and the Beast (or at least the 1991 Disney version) is a simple one: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” With the ambitious, decisively uncynical new anime movie Belle, writer-director Mamoru Hosoda adds to a long list of adaptations by updating the story for the internet age. Carefully fabricated online personas replace magical curses, and enchanted singing candlesticks transform into mewling AIs. But the director of Mirai and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time pushes the core message one step further by emphasizing how connection is a two-way street. It isn’t enough to recognize someone else’s true self without offering vulnerability in return. Produced by Hosoda’s Studio Chizu, this lush, spectacularly animated vision argues for the life-changing bonds that can develop when people shed their digital defenses.

Belle takes place in a near-future where a virtual-reality platform called U dominates the global consciousness. Singer Kaho Nakamura stars as Suzu, a shy provincial teen still grieving the death of her mother, who drowned rescuing a child from a flooding river. Suzu and her mom shared a love of music, and since the traumatic incident, Suzu has panic attacks when she tries to sing. She only regains confidence and her voice when she enters U as an avatar named Belle. With the help of her mischievous hacker friend Hiro (Lilas Ikuta), she inadvertently becomes a viral pop idol in the process.

For Suzu, U’s appeal is its capacity for reinvention — the virtual world promises escapism in the form of anonymity. (The platform’s ultimate punishment for wrongdoing is “Unveiling,” where an avatar is stripped away and the user behind it is exposed to the world.) When a misbehaving user known as