The Little Prince is a classic novella written in 1943, originally in French, by author and aviator Antoine de St Exupéry. It has been translated into over 250 languages. The original text is so whimsical, charming, mysterious, and riveting, filled with the loveliest, strangest little illustrations by St Exupéry himself that it has always been a challenge to adapt, having lived so successfully in people’s imaginations based on the book’s own visual strengths.
Last year around this time, the animated movie The Little Prince premiered at the Cannes Film Festival out of competition. Made in the English language by Mark Osborne, the film is a daring take on the original text, choosing to frame the story of the novella involving a little golden haired boy from space who inhabits asteroid B-612, within another story about a little girl named Jessica Riley (voiced by Mackenzie Foy) who is struggling with her mother’s attempts to rush her through an accelerated childhood so that she might attend a prestigious academy to ensure her future success.
The film begins a bit unsurely, with the story of Jessica and her highly-strung, hyper ambitious mother Roxanne (Rachel McAdams) as they rush around trying to train Jessica to jump through the absurdly high hoops expected by the clearly nefarious Werth Academy. When Jessica falters during her terrifying admissions interview, Roxanne moves their single parent home to a neighbourhood that ensures that the children will attend the aforementioned institution. Jessica must prepare through the summer to become worthy of Werth Academy, as her mother leaves for work each day, Jessica sits down to an absurdly rigorous work plan of her own, designed to make her a highly successful automaton.
Luckily, Jessica’s homogenous neighbourhood has one surprising feature: an elderly aviator (obviously a homage to the late St Exupéry himself), voiced by the great Jeff Bridges who lives next door in a shabby house with an actual garden and an old aeroplane that he hopes will take him to see his old friend, the Little Prince, who he once met in the Sahara desert when his plane crashed.
Visually, and in terms of narrative, the film finally begins to capture the magic of the novella once Jessica starts to read the story of the aviator’s encounter with his strange little friend, a happening that finally brings her in touch with the glories of a child’s imagination. This is a theme celebrated throughout the source material.
The film ultimately succeeds, in this slightly bizarre Americanised version, because the creators thankfully understand the core of what makes The Little Prince so captivating. Ultimately, the film is a celebration of the novella, and therefore, a worthy iteration of an important artwork.
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