Favorite Characters: Sara Crewe (A Little Princess)

It’s time for another saunter down memory lane with one of my earliest childhood heroines (Meg Murray was the first that I can clearly remember, but Sara came not long after.)  As usual, keep in mind that I only know A Little Princess from the 1995 movie, so none of my observations have the slightest basis in the book (major spoilers.)

Seriously, how amazing is this little girl?  First up to bat in the list of Sara’s awesome qualities is her imagination.  This one is a no-brainer.  It’s just wonderful that she can weave anything into a tale of magic, wonder, and love.  Even when reading an actual book at school, she gets so invested in the fate of the main characters that she imagines a better, more exciting ending for her in the midst of reading it aloud to her classmates, ad-libbing a new story complete with pirates, mermaids, and handsome stable boys.    Her midnight stories become a regular feature among the girls at the school, and she incorporates “the magic” into her daily life as well, such as consoling Lottie classmate with a description of her late mother becoming an angel.

Sara’s stories aren’t only creative and delightful – at Miss Minchin’s school, they’re also forbidden.  This leads into Sara’s next great quality, her bravery and resolve.  She doesn’t accept anything simply because someone tells her it’s true, and so she’s forever challenging rules and conventions.  She doesn’t rebel merely for the sake of it.  Rather, when she comes across a decree that seems unfair, or even just illogical, she either openly opposes it or finds a hidden work-around.

Another important aspect of Sara is her kindness.  This is crucial, especially considering Sara’s well-to-do – it would probably be fair to say “spoiled” – upbringing.  It wouldn’t be surprising, especially in this time period, to see the little rich girl thinking mainly of her own concerns instead of others.  However, it’s a credit to how her excellent father raised her that reaching out to others is just part and parcel of how she goes about her day.  She’s friendly and inviting to everyone and even responds to Lavinia’s uppity attitude with honey rather than vinegar most of the time.  But she’s particularly drawn to those who are more on the outside of things:  tempestuous Lottie and awkward Ermengarde, as well as Becky, the timid servant girl who’s been harshly taught to be seen and not heard.

One more quality of note – Sara’s resilience.  It’s what allows her, with difficulty, to hang onto the other three when she’s tested to her limits.  When her father is reported killed in action in WWI, the grieving child is yanked out of the classroom and forced into servitude to earn her continued room and board, and she’s wrecked.  She spends a long time shutting herself off from everyone around her as she mourns her father and struggles through her new circumstances.  But even there, almost despite herself, she continues to be who she is in small ways.  Her imagination helps her and Becky through a hungry day when they create a make-believe feast to sustain them.  She continues to find small ways to resist, such as playing a trick on Miss Minchin after she’s cruel to a chimney sweep.  And she is still ceaselessly kind, finding others who need help even in the midst of her own hardships – she gives precious food to someone who needs it more than she does, and she offers a gentle hand to a neighbor whose son, a soldier like her father, is reported missing.  That Sara still finds wells of imagination, resolve, and kindness under such overwhelming trials speaks tremendously to her strength.

A Little Princess (1995, G)

For starters, let me admit that I’ve never read A Little Princess, so I don’t know how much this film adaptation deviates from the book (a lot, I hear.)  It’s possible that, if I read it, the movie would lose some of its shine for me, but I have my doubts about that.  First, regardless of the original story told by the book, the story the movie tells is lovely and excellently-told, and second, I’ve loved this movie since I was a kid, and that’s a bias that’s hard to mess with (a few spoilers, by necessity.)

When her father has to join the fight during WWI, bold, imaginative Sara is sad to leave her home in India, and even sadder to part with him.  However, at the New York boarding school where he brings her, Sara is soon causing a commotion.  She doesn’t accept something is true just because an adult says it, she speaks her mind, and her stories of magic and romance, while a hit among the students, don’t jibe with the strict Miss Minchin’s ordered way of life.  A sudden tragedy drastically changes Sara’s circumstances, and she struggles to maintain her belief in the wonderful and impossible as her new life threatens to grind her down.

Nitpicks first.  Most of the child actors definitely feel like child actors, and even Liesel Matthews, who plays Sara, sometimes gives off an air of reciting her lines instead of saying them.  That said, everyone does a decent job, and Sara’s charm, spark, and heroism shines through the vast majority of the time.  Some of the humor gets a bit kiddish at times, but it’s not bad.  (This is the furthest I can go in criticizing it.  See, I told you I love this movie!)

But the good is so good.  I first saw this film nearly a decade before I knew who Alfonso Cuarón was, but his direction is topnotch as he deftly moves between changes in tone – the delightful, heartbreaking, touching, triumphant, suspenseful, funny, and magical moments all come off just as they should.  As usual, Emmanuel Lubezki is on hand to make the cinematography look amazing.

All the themes, from making your world how you choose to see it, to the love of a true friend, are beautifully explored and just what an 8-year-old girl needed when she saw this in the movie theater 21 years ago.  I love watching Sara at every point in her journey:  confidently forging her own path, losing sight of herself, and finding her way back again.  I also love her gorgeous relationship with her lovely father (Liam Cunningham, who I’ll always adore because of this role) and the easy way she nurtures friendships with some of the sad and lonely girls at the school, scarcely aware that she’s giving them exactly what they need.  I’m biased toward Becky (her reaction to the “feast” is the cutest thing ever,) but Ermengarde and Lottie are great, too.

Also?  Let’s be real.  “I am a princess.  All girls are.  Even if they live in tiny old attics.  Even if they dress in rags.  Even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young.  They’re still princesses.  All of us.”  Come on!  I defy you to tell me that’s not awesome.

Warnings

A few scary scenes, thematic elements, and a war scene (no fighting, just aftermath.)

Relationship Spotlight: Sara & Capt. Crewe (A Little Princess)

First, a shameful admission:  I've never actually read the book.  I know, I know - what sort of female bookworm am I?  However, I'm fiercely devoted to the 1995 Alfonso Cuaron film, and while I hear it takes great liberties with the story, I love it far too much to care.  Anyway, today's post comes courtesy of said movie, so if any comments make you suspect I haven't done the assigned reading, you're absolutely right.

I don't know what it is about father-daughter relationships in fiction, but they tend to have a greater capacity to "get to me" than any other kind of of fictional relationship.  It wrecks me to see girls desperately loving terrible fathers who never come through for them, I melt seeing men bend the heavens to provide for their daughters, and when a perfect pair comes along, I hardly know what to do with myself.  I've yet to see any, though, that move me quite like Sara Crewe and her father.

They're not even onscreen together that much, since of course the brunt of the story takes place at Sara's boarding school while Capt. Crewe fights in World War I.  Still, their scenes at the start of the film couldn't be sweeter.  He's indulgent without spoiling her - her new toys and expensive room at school are as much about assuaging his worries at leaving her as anything else, and when Sara almost immediately clashes with Miss Minchin, he stands back to see how she handles it herself.

Their goodbye is gorgeous.  Lovingly filmed with the light falling on them as she sits in his lap on the window seat, he spins her a comforting story about her doll coming to life and carrying messages between them.  She lightly traces his face with her fingers and, at his wondering if she's memorizing his features, replies, "I already know you by heart."

Though, like I said, they spend most of the movie apart, the presence of each is greatly felt in the scenes of the other.  I love the shot of Capt. Crewe sitting in a lean-to in a storm, reading a letter from Sara, and her upbringing is evident in everything she does.  From her kind acceptance of others to her imaginative storytelling to her headstrong sense of justice, she carries her father's lessons with her.

And the ending - oh my goodness, the ending!  (Be warned, I'm about to spoil the ending of the movie, so turn back now if you so choose...)





First of all, I love that, even not remembering anything about himself or his life, Capt. Crewe's automatic reaction to finding a random kid who's wandered into the house during a thunderstorm is to comfort her.  I love that, even though she's had such a long time for his "death" to sink in, she still recognizes his voice.  I love the enchanted way she looks up at him, that quiet "Papa?", and then how she pounces on him with embraces.  It kills me that he can't remember her, and it's wrenching when they pry her off of him and haul her away screaming and pleading for him.  And then, when he runs out into the rain and shouts her name, and she leaps into his arms, and they're both crying and laughing and clinging to each other like it'd physically hurt to let go?  I'm pretty sure that was the first time I ever cried in a movie theater, and it still gets me every time.