A Little Princess
"All girls are princesses." Alfonso Cuarón's 1995 version of the Burnett classic moved Sara Crewe to a New York boarding school in wartime, lost money in theaters, and then sold two million tapes. The attic, the locket, Miss Minchin: a sleeper that became a childhood staple on video.
Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel dates to 1905, and Cuarón's film follows the 1939 screen version more than the book: Sara's father is wounded and missing in action rather than dead, the story moves from London to New York during the First World War, and the scullery maid Becky becomes African-American. It was Cuarón's first American film, after his 1991 Mexican debut Sólo con tu pareja, made for Warner Bros.' Family Entertainment label with producer Mark Johnson, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and composer Patrick Doyle.
Sara was played by Liesel Matthews in her film debut; she was Liesel Pritzker of the Hyatt-hotel Pritzkers, acting under a name that honored her brother Matthew. Eleanor Bron played the spiteful headmistress Miss Minchin, with Liam Cunningham and Vanessa Lee Chester alongside. The film opens in India in 1914, follows Sara to the school with her mother's locket and her doll Emily, and sends her to the attic when word comes that her father has been killed, where she keeps the other girls spellbound with tales of Prince Rama and holds to her father's creed that all girls are princesses.
Warner released it on May 10, 1995, and the critics were rapturous. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called it "a bright, beautiful and enchantingly childlike vision" that "takes enough liberties to re-invent rather than embalm Miss Burnett's assiduously beloved story," and Rita Kempley of the Washington Post called it Cuarón's "dazzling" North American debut. Audiences did not come: it grossed about $10 million on a $17 million budget. The Academy noticed anyway, nominating it for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography.
Home video rescued it. By April 1997 Warner had sold two million copies, an estimated $32 million in video revenue, several times what the theaters had returned, which is why so many people who never saw it on a big screen know every frame of the attic. Cuarón went on to Y tu mamá también, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Children of Men; Matthews made Air Force One, then left acting and now works in impact investing.
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