I’m not sure the live-action Beauty & the Beast can possibly live up to my love for the animated version. I mean, how can you do better than Robby Benson growling his way into liking “the girl”? And as much as I enjoy Emma Thompson, I’m not sure I’ll ever be satisfied with someone other than Angela Lansbury singing about a “Tale as old as time.” (I’ve heard a clip since I started this post. She may have won me.)

Even so, I have been counting down the weeks for the release of this movie. So, you know my despair, Dear Reader, when social media connections everywhere started warning me that to pay my money at the box office would be to support something wicked and nefarious. Something that would despoil our children and steal the very virtue from their lives.

And the more the commentators wrote, the more the words started to remind me of the lyrics from that scene in the original movie where the villagers end up shouting, “Kill the Beast!”

We don’t want to do that. Right?

I don’t know if Lefou really has a thing for Gaston or not. But, I think there is a better way for us to handle that small detail as viewers. (Recent reviews admit it is a small detail, and children probably won’t even catch it.)

But, if our children do pick up on the suggestion, maybe we will get one more opportunity to have that all important conversation about Feelings-And-What-To-Do-With-Them.

And, if Lefou happens to work in the cubicle next to me, and I come back from the theater raving about the beauty of the art and the glory of the message (which is redemption through love) maybe he won’t worry that I’m coming for him with a garden spade and an axe on my lunch hour.

That seems like a good thing. Right?