Belle

It's hard to imagine the true story of Britain's first mixed-race aristocrat being told more elegantly than in this warm and often very funny period piece, which brings a subtle political gravitas to its central fairy-tale romance. The title character, Dido Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), is the illegitimate child of a slave and a nobleman, and is fetched from the slums of Bristol docks by her father in the film's opening moments. He recognises Dido as his heir, and she is taken to live with her great uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson), at London's Kenwood House, where she is introduced to a life of luxury. When she comes of age, however, Dido is alerted to the injustices of the world by her guardian's apprentice, the serious but charismatic law student John Davinier (Sam Reid). The horror of slavery is addressed, as are many other issues, but Belle does so from a place of hope and love, expanding the Georgian world of Jane Austen while delivering all the wit and spectacle of top-flight costume drama.