THE CRIES OF anti-feminism still swirling around the original Little Mermaid, released in 1989, seem to misunderstand that Ariel (voiced marvelously by Jodi Benson) is a young woman fueled by boundless curiosity. Her exploratory spirit and desire for adventure on the surface world find an outlet in Prince Eric, but he’s hardly the cause or the impetus for them. In the 2023 live-action update, Halle Bailey gets it; she foregrounds Ariel’s sweetness but maintains her desire to face the unknown, the two sides of her personality being stitched together with vitality and charm. It all comes through in her singing voice, which has a beautiful clarity of emotion in its range. But unfortunately, Bailey is completely failed by the dull, misguided production around her. As the studio has done with other live-action remakes, Disney betrays its own lack of imagination and an essential misreading of what made its children’s fare such a joy for audiences in the first place.
The marketing around the film, directed by Rob Marshall, would have you believe this Little Mermaid is a bold reimagining that prioritizes a modern, moral, even feminist schema missing from the original. But it doesn’t reimagine so much as curdle its predecessor’s story with mostly minor changes. It sticks to the sequence, scenes, and dynamics of the original, save for some overdone character exposition that’s meant to give the film greater emotional heft but just leaves the plot and dialogue leaden.
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