directed by Mark Osborne
written by Irena Brignull and Bob Persichetti
based on the novel by Antoine de St. Exupery
While the entire world is captivated by Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, I have finally found the time to review a brand-new adaptation of a somewhat different cultural icon, Antoine de St. Exupery's The Little Prince.
Directed by Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne, this film is the first ever animated adaptation of the classic novel, and faithfully reproduces the narrative, right down to de St. Exupery's wonderful, whimsical illustrations.
Given that the rather brief novel is inherently difficult to stretch out to a feature-length film, however, the screenwirters Irena Brignull and Bob Persichetti add another layer to the narrative.
In this film, the aviator/narrator of the book is a strange, lonely old man (voiced by Jeff Bridges) whose antics make him a difficult neighbor to live with, as a result the immediately adjacent house to his plummets in value and becomes the perfect residence for an upwardly mobile mother (Rachel McAdams) and her daughter (Mackenzie Foy), especially since it is near the exclusive prep school in which the mother wishes to enroll her daughter. The daughter lives a highly-regimented life with a very strict schedule designed to get her into the prep school, and at first, the old man and his eccentricities, such as an incident in which a propeller from his airplane smashes clear through the house wall, are an unwelcome distraction, but as the old man, in a peace gesture, begins to send the little girl paper airplanes which are folded up pages of a story with whimsical illustrations about a strange little prince, she changes her mind about him and, while her mother is off at work, befriends him. In the course of this friendship, she hears the aviator's extraordinary story about the time he was stranded in the Sahara desert, and met a strange little boy (Riley Osborne) who lived on an asteroid. It's a very interesting a story, to be sure, and before it's over the little girl discovers the importance of being a child.
For me, the tragedy of this movie (not the story) in this particular market is twofold: first, The Little Prince is not a particularly popular book in the Philippines, and second this film was destined to be overshadowed by the two tentpole films between which it was released: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The American distributor of this film, Paramount Pictures, was somewhat cannier as they have scheduled its release for a relatively uncrowded March of next year. My children and I were among ten people in the movie theater at the time we watched it.
Whatever its eventual fate at the global box office, this is a masterfully-realized film, which is almost on par with some of Disney/Pixar's best output.
While the "modern day" framing device helps keep the story moving, it's the Prince's otherworldly adventures, and his interaction with the youthful pilot and his other colorful supporting cast like the Rose (Marion Cotillard), the Fox (James Franco), the Snake (Benicio del Toro), and the inhabitants of the various asteroids he visits (Albert Brooks, Ricky Gervais among others), that matter most, and Osborne's use of stop-motion to depict these scenes is wonderfully innovative and reminiscent of craft paper and contrasts wonderfully with the more "traditional" computer-generated imagery. The all-star cast of supporting actors disappear into their roles, and it was only at the end credits that I realized who they were, and it was equally impressive that Riley Osborne was able to hold his own. The director's choice of his son to dub the title-character raised my eyebrow at first, but to be fair the younger Osborne proved a very capable voice actor who captured the spirit of this timeless character. Mackenzie Foy, the actress behind the nameless "hero girl" is more talented than Osborne and has both more "voice time" and the arguably greater challenge of making her scenes, which are rendered with very little color and which are meant to depict a bland world in which what is "non-essential" is discarded, more engaging.
Notably, the movie challenges the ending of the book, which I'm sure many readers over the years have found anticlimactic, in the form of an interesting sequence that may or may not be a dream. Osborne the elder cleverly leaves it up to the audience to decide, though the actual ending of the film leaves no room for doubt that this is an thoroughly satisfying movie.
I don't claim to know St. Exupery, but I like to think he would love this adaptation of his wonderful novel.
9/10
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