A reviewer said that Belle is a deeply conventional movie. Belle is a movie that models the story that it depicts: how to simultaneously obey the rules while subverting them for greater justice when these rules do not reflect the realities of the world. It takes the model of a Jane Austen movie–a young woman about to enter society and look for a husband– then subtly shows the fissures and cracks of that world, particularly how deeply offensive and inhumane those rules can be even when implemented by those who are kind, well intentioned and loving. It is also the rare film that is able to effectively address how depictions in media (in this case, paintings) can fall criminally and cruelly short of reality, the problems that can exist within feminism, the excellent Negro being simultaneously less and more than the mediocre majority counterpart, and the vortex created by class, gender and race. Belle also acknowledges the absence of the voices of those forgotten by society and does not claim to speak for them. Not only is Belle a good movie, but one that needs people to see it in the theaters. It is an independent film directed by a black woman. As audiences, we need to vote with our money and buy tickets for the kind of movies that we want to watch.