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The Little Prince

Absolutely charming

This respectful reimagining of Antoine Saint-Exupery’s timeless 1943 children’s tale adds all sorts of frills, but remains true to its theme of childhood wonderment vs. grown-up rigidity. The story has to do with a pilot (voiced by Jeff Bridges) who has crashed in the Sahara, meeting a strange boy who claims to be the sole inhabitant of a distant asteroid and is full of stories about self-important adults.

This slender, ethereal tale (in clay animation) is nested within an amusing, present-day struggle (in cutting-edge CGI) between an imaginative child and her goal-oriented mother. Absolutely charming. Japanese title: Little Prince: Hoshi no Ojisama to Watashi. (108 min)