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Tuesday, October 10, 2017

THE LITTLE PRINCE (2015)

Better title: (NOT) THE LITTLE PRINCE. Who the heck thought the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry classic about a lost aviator & an engaging child prince (loaded with whimsical meta-physics & philosophy) could best be served as side-story for a PIXAR/Disney-style school-girl fable on self-empowerment? 20 minutes of PETIT PRINCE highlights remain intact, charmingly realized in Stop-Motion animation, but mere platform for a by-the-CGI-numbers wraparound story of a blindly ambitious single-mom doing whatever is necessary (make that whatever is ESSENTIAL) to land her obedient 8-yr-old girl at an elite high-performance school for over-achievers. Too bad their chilly, high-tech house is next door to the ramshackle home of an eccentric, aging aviator. (Saint-Exupéry, had he lived so long.) Soon, he’s tempting the child away from formal prep routines with wise aperçu, fanciful illusion & humanity; seeing from the heart, as visualized in tantalizing draft pages of his unpublished book. Workable enough as prologue to get into a certain book; alas, here it’s used to get us past a certain book. And then off on a girl’s journey of enlightenment as she’s exposed to possibilities beyond rote learning & group think. Eventually, if arbitrarily, linking up with a 20-something version of The Little Prince, currently employed as a multi-tasking drudge for the usual evil corporate types. With impressive vocal talent involved, not particularly well-suited for their roles, they must have confused literary deconstruction with literary desecration. Then again, failing to squeeze the oddities of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book into the formulaic mold of commercial Hollywood animation is, at the least, something of a backhanded compliment.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Jacques Tati handled many of these ideas in magical fashion with MON ONCLE/’58. OR: The flop Stanley Donen/Lerner & Loewe LITTLE PRINCE film musical from ‘74 (see below) pleased just about no one (including Donen/Lerner & Loewe). But once past a few rocky opening sections, there are too many good things in it to miss; exceptional turns from Bob Fosse & Gene Wilder.

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