The Little Prince (Mark Osborne, 2015): France

Reviewed by Martin Hutchinson. Viewed at the Arlington Theater, Santa Barbara.

Mark Osborne’s The Little Prince began its life inside three vintage suitcases. They were designed with sole purpose of capturing the spirit of the beloved eponymous book and transporting it around the country to give the director’s vision of the film to prospective producers. What emerged from this was something surprisingly unique.

The film’s narrative conceit is a story within a story with the former being that of the original The Little Prince. A young girl with an overachieving  and controlling mother leads a sorry existence, sapped of creativity or pleasure. The only respite from this comes when a neighbor, an old aviator, begins telling her stories of a magical character from his past.  She begins to take control of her own life and she yearns to emulate the hero of the aviator’s stories.

The film combines both stop motion and CG to present the stories of the Little Prince and the newly introduced girl respectively. The CG is reminiscent of work on the Incredibles and Frozen but unfortunately when comparing the two animation styles one is unmistakably less arresting. The stop motion, quite apart from the material involved, is simply more visually interesting while the CG lacks the attention to detail and natural beauty of the former. That is not to say that the CG in this film is not expertly executed. The final sequences of the film (which are shot in CG) where both worlds intersect make for some stunning visuals. These later sequences contain very surrealistic, fantastic, even Kafkaesque imagery that in many ways redeem the dryness of the animation style exhibited earlier in the film. When it comes to the Little Prince sequences, they are absolutely fantastic. They have a life and verve that is truly magical to behold.

The film itself is originally French and this US premiere had an ensemble dub in English with some rather famous actors. Generally the transition to English was well handled and Jeff Bridges and Rachel McAdams do a fantastic job voicing their characters. However in some instances, especially in the case of James Franco, the celebrity casting is more off-putting than anything else,  leaving one to wonder at the casting decision rather than pay attention to the flow of the story.

The Little Prince is certainly a must see for fans of the Book. It successfully creates a vehicle for the book to be translated to a big screen debut. Those who are not familiar with the source material should first consider their comfort level with status quo CGI before making a decision.