In 1989, The Little Mermaid delivered the kiss of life to Disney’s floundering animation studio, ushering in a period now fondly thought of as its creative renaissance. Now its live-action remake is arriving at a time of falling profits and uncertainty about the studio’s future. Talk about synchronicity. But the differences between The Little Mermaid of yesterday and The Little Mermaid of today, as with many of these remakes, are really the differences between what the industry once was and what it now is. This is a Little Mermaid robbed of its voice – its choices ruled largely by fear, rather than the thrill of creative risk.
That said, there’s a glimpse of a Little Mermaid that could have been in the casting of Halle Bailey, one half of the R&B duo Chloe x Halle, one-time proteges of Beyoncé. She’s our new Ariel, the mermaid princess who trades her voice for a shiny pair of legs and the chance to live blissfully on land with her beloved Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) – having paid no thought to the fact she’s just made an irreversible deal with a sea witch (Melissa McCarthy’s Ursula) afflicted by a persistent maniacal cackle.
