Oh Be Careful Little Eyes – A Review of the Little Prince

You Said This Was A Movie Review.

I did say this is a movie review, which is truly what I initially set out to write. The movie is a story within a story. Setting the story of the little prince into modern day as told by an eccentric/aging old man (who we learn is the Aviator) to a little girl who is destined to only study and turn into one of those ridiculous adults whom the Prince despises. Most of the adults in the story are pushing the little girl toward adulthood, even so far as strapping her to a chair and sending her into a machine that is made to speed up the aging process (Disturbing! WTH Netflix?)

Like the book, The “wonder” of childhood is as flat and missing true joy. This creates quite an attitude problem for the little girl when her mother tries to rid her of even that disfigured image of childhood.

Only the eccentric old man next door, who we learn is the Aviator, is supposedly trying to let her be a kid. However, it is the relationship with the aging Aviator that is the cause of my greatest concern with the movie. Interestingly, this was ignored by every movie review I read.

Can you say STRANGER DANGER?!

This relationship even fails the more recent formulation of “Avoiding Tricky People.” The man tries to initiate contact with the little girl by waving at her through the window when he knows she is at home alone. He then sends a paper airplane through the window with a portion of his story on it for her to read. She is curious and sneaks out of her house and into his backyard. Here the aviator’s parachute is billowing toward the ground, and the man invites the young girl under the parachute where it covers them both and they laugh. He proceeds to invite her into his home where they form a relationship, out of view from the world and in complete secrecy from her mother. She continually lies to her mother to keep her activities a secret, repeatedly sneaking out of the house. This behavior is never condemned or corrected. The mother even says, “Thank you,” to the old man at the end. Thank you for what?

A grown man initiates and cultivates a relationship with a little girl intentionally avoiding her mother and fostering secrecy. It is inappropriate. Thankfully, he ended up having innocent intentions. But normalizing that kind of behavior is unacceptable. And like the snake, couches danger in flowery language.

Fictional relationships between eccentric old men and children have been masterfully done in other works. Mr. Fredricksen and Russell in the movie UP, the Pevensie Children and the Professor in the Chronicles of Narnia, and Burt and Jane and Michael in Mary Poppins are a few examples. These men did not seek the relationships, and were even hesitant to engage with them. But in a moment of need, they appropriately stepped in as a father figure. More simply— they had appropriate boundaries. Perhaps this is what the filmmakers were going for with the Aviator in the Little Prince. If so, they missed the mark! He was just creepy.

In this way, the film did in fact keep in the spirit of the book. They both depicted unacceptable content decorated in endearing eccentricity. This is exceptionally troubling, because dangerous ideas are presented so harmlessly that the audience is sucked into the delusion without even realizing it.

But I guess that is what happens, when the world you live on is only a little bit bigger than yourself.