Film / A Little Princess (1995)

A Little Princess is a 1995 film directed by Alfonso Cuarón, based on the novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Read the screenplay here.

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This film contains examples of:

• Adaptational Alternate Ending: Sort of. The film keeps the book's ending of Sara being restored to her wealth, but it happens in a different way. Captain Crewe is actually alive, suffering from amnesia. Miss Minchin discovers the finery in Sara's attic room, assumes it's stolen and phones the police. Sara is reunited with her father while trying to escape. Additionally while Becky is promoted to Sara's personal attendant in the book, the film goes ahead and says that she's been adopted as a sister instead. And Miss Minchin is removed from her position and has to work as a chimney sweep.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Played with. Sara in the book believes she isn't pretty (because she doesn't have beautiful blonde hair), and it's her kindness and spunkiness that compels people to attend to her. This trait is abandoned in the film, where she's played by the cute Liesel Matthews.
• Adaptational Karma: Dished out at the end to Miss Minchin, who loses the school after Sara's father returns and discovers how horribly she treated his daughter. In her last scene, she's reduced to a destitute wreck, forced to work as a chimney sweep under the boy she abused earlier in the film.
• Adaptational Nationality:
  • Sara is a British child in the books, but played by an American. Her father is still British and her mother is said to have been a student at the school (which is now in New York), implying she is half-American.
  • Miss Minchin is also British in the book, but here, she is American. Ironically, Elenore Bron, the actress who plays her, is British.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Nearly all the students (sans Ermengarde and Lottie), who in the novel, while not mean per se, did treat Sara as if she were another servant after the loss of her fortune despite earlier being her friend. Here, while unsure what to do at first, they are still genuinely friendly with her, even helping to obtain her locket. Notably, Lavinia is redeemed by the end.
• Adaptational Villainy: As horrible as Miss Minchin is, for most of the film she genuinely believes Captain Crewe to be dead. When he turns up alive, she commits her most reprehensible action yet: despite clearly recognising him, she continues to lie that Sara has no father, letting the girl be taken away by the police on false charges. None of this occurs in the original book.
• Adaptational Wealth: At the end of the book, Becky becomes Sara's personal attendant. At the end of this film, she's adopted by Captain Crewe.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Sara has dark hair in the book but it's a light brown in the film.
• Adaptation Expansion: In the book, Miss Minchin never sees the room filled with finery by Ram Dass. In the film, her discovering it (and assuming Sara has stolen everything) prompts the climax — where Minchin summons the police.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: Sara wakes up to find her attic room filled with food, clothing and other luxuries. In the book, these things were brought to her in secret over a number of weeks by Ram Dass, the Indian man living next door, while she slept. In the film, they're just there with no explanation outside of Ram Dass overhearing Sara and Becky's conversation about what foods they imagine having. The implication is that 'the magic' Sara believes in is real and Ram Dass somehow has it.
• Adaptation Personality Change: While still keeping her kindness, this version of Sara is much more of a Mouthy Kid and Little Miss Snarker, although mostly towards her antagonists.
• Adapted Out:
  • The Large family that Sara watches from outside their window doesn't appear in the film.
  • Carrisford, Captain Crewe's business partner, does not appear in the film.
• Age Lift:
  • The other way around. Lavinia is older in the book — said to be about fourteen to Sara's eight. In the film, Sara and Lavinia are about eleven and twelve years old, respectively.
  • Becky is also aged down from fourteen to Sara's nine to being the same age.
• Allegory Adventure: The film weaves in bits of the Ramayana by making it Sara Crewe's favorite book. The strong implication is that King Rama's story mirrors Captain Crewe's—the two characters are even played by the same actor. Princess Sita is also played by the same woman who portrays Sara's mother (which is subtler, as she's a Posthumous Character who never appears outside of photos).
• Armor-Piercing Question: From Sara to Miss Minchin:
  Sara: Didn't your father ever tell you you were a princess?
• Big Fun: Miss Amelia is shown to be a chubby woman who, while a little awkward and neurotic, is still very fun and kind to the girls.
• Bitch Alert: Lavinia is introduced by dipping Ermengarde's hair in an ink well, and looking furious when she hears how wealthy Sara is.
• Blade-of-Grass Cut: Sara and the camera briefly focus on a balloon when Miss Minchin tells her what happened to her father.
• Cacophony Cover Up: Lottie's ear-piercing scream creates a diversion under the cover of which the girls can fetch Sara's locket from Miss Minchin's office.
• Central Theme: The central theme of the film is that all girls can be princesses, no matter their disadvantages and that magic can be real if you believe. The contrast between Sara, a plain servant girl but kind and helpful person, and Miss Minchin, a pristine headmistress but ruthless and cruel woman, emphasizes the theme.
• Child Hater: This version of Miss Minchin really seems to hate children (at least those who aren't her pupils). In addition to treating Sara and Becky horribly (including trying to get them arrested in the climax), she's seen mistreating a young chimney sweep and denying him pay.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Miss Minchin’s school is punctuated by green, signifying that Sara has to adapt to living in a one-color world.
• Companion Cube: Emily the doll is this to Sara.
• Compressed Adaptation: Sara is at the school for several years in the book, but it's only two years at most in the film.
• Costume Porn: Even more than in the novel. You can hardly blame Miss Minchin when she says Sara can't wear her finery looking at what she's wearing in that very scene.
• Dad's Off Fighting in the War: Sara's father goes off to fight in World War I.
• Death by Childbirth: Sara's mother dies giving birth to Sara's younger sister, who died as well.
• Death Glare: Miss Minchin does this twice to Sara in both scenes where she confronts her in the attic.
• Defeat Means Menial Labor: At the end, Miss Minchin no longer runs the school, but is working as a chimney sweep, with the boy she mistreated earlier in the movie as her new boss.
• Denied Food as Punishment: As a punishment for telling another one of her stories to the girls, Miss Minchin punishes both Sara and Becky by having the latter stay locked in her room and the former to do all of the latter's chores without meals. There is very little effort put into enforcing that proclamation as Sara openly defies Miss Minchin out of sight by pretending there is food. Thanks to Ram Dass, her dream comes true.
• Didn't Think This Through: The girls stealing Sara's locket from Miss Minchin's office. They didn't think that Minchin would notice and assume Sara stole it?
• Disney Death: Sara's father, who in this case is confused for being dead with John Randolph from next door.
• Dramatic Necklace Removal: Sara's locket. Minchin rips it off her once news of her father's death gets to her, and she confiscates it.
• Easy Amnesia: Crewe comes down with acute amnesia as a side-effect of being hit by the poison gas in the trenches. He overcomes it in the end in time to save Sara from being taken away by the police.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: Invoked by Becky to distract Miss Minchin from catching Ermengarde and the other girls in her office. She screams right at the second that Minchin opens the door, distracting her and allowing the girls to escape with the locket while she stammers her way through lying that she thought she saw a mouse.
• Elopement: Amelia and the Milkman at Sara's suggestion.
• Emerald Power: Downplayed. The school uniforms are green, with a white pinafore over them. Possibly symbolizing how Sara will have to work hard to uncover the magic there.
• Empathic Environment:
  • There's a torrential downpour going on when Sara is moved into the attic.
  • Another rainstorm starts along with the climax.
  • During the climax, after escaping the school and entering Mr. Randolph's house, Sara is caught between the police and, unbeknownst to her, her amnesiac father. At this point, the lights in Mr. Randolph's house go out. When Sara is about to look up and realize that her father is right in front of her, the lights come on again.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Miss Minchin looks downright horrified when Sara nearly falls to her death multiple times trying to escape the police. Once she sees that Sara has gotten to safety, however, she does still order the police to go after her.
• Eye Take: Lavinia when she sees stray hairs clinging to her brush. She's scared that her hair might be falling out.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Mother-Figure: An extreme example. Miss Minchin counts Sara encouraging the girls to use their imaginations during story time as a dangerous, rebellious fantasy.
• Foreshadowing: During Sara and Becky's imagine spot of the two of them in India, Becky is wearing the same clothes she has on when Captain Crewe adopts her.
• Freudian Excuse: Implied. Miss Minchin is clearly shaken by Sara's question about whether or not her father ever told her she was a princess, and is seen wiping a tear away in anger after leaving the attic, hinting that her relationship with her parents was decidedly different from Sara's.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Miss Minchin is implied to have had a very harsh childhood if Sara's question is anything to go by, resulting in her becoming the cold and hardened woman we see in the movie. While that explains why she's so determined to make life miserable for Sara, that doesn't justify her cruelty to Sara and Becky even if her actions are understandable and lawful.
• Harp of Femininity: Miss Minchin is shown playing a harp at moments when she's not actively working to make Sara's life miserable. Her musical ability is arguably the only likable trait the character has.
• Heel–Face Turn: Lavinia by the end of the film, who after being cursed by Sara into losing her hair for all of her cruelty, ends up hugging her goodbye once she leaves the boarding school. Seeing how this scene receives a Repeat Cut, it showcases both the significance and the sincerity of her redemption.
• Hidden Depths: The confrontation between Sara and Miss Minchin heavily implies that, on some level, the latter does feel guilty for her actions, and that one of the reasons she is what she is, according to the novelization by Diane Molleson, is because "no one had ever loved her, or told her they loved her", with her doing everything she can to bury it and ignore it.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Sara supposedly has this.
• Innocent Flower Girl: After buying a bun with money she got as a handout, Sara sees an impoverished girl trying to sell yellow roses to passersby next to her mother and little sister. Sara gives the bun to the girl's little sister, who was eyeing it, and the girl gives her a rose for free as thanks.
• I Want My Mommy!: One of the youngest girls at the boarding school, Lottie, throws routine fits and cries out for her mother. While the others just let her have her fits, Sara, who is trying to do her studies, asks her to stop, only to find out from Lottie that her mother is dead. Sara then tells her that her own mother is dead, too, along with her baby sister and then comforts her by explaining what a beautiful and happy place heaven is and how they're at peace, which cheers the younger girl up to a point that she doesn't throw another fit again in the whole film, except one which was used as a distraction.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Downplayed. Miss Minchin is far from pleasant, especially with how she treats Sara, Becky, and her students, but the "life lesson" on reality she gives Sara after punishing her with extra chores and no meals for continuing to tell her stories to the other girls isn't exactly wrong. What downplays it is that she's saying all of this to a child who is, as far as she knows, an orphan with no one in the world, which makes it a vindictive Kick the Dog moment.
  Miss Minchin: It's time you learn, Sara Crewe, that real life has nothing to do with your little fantasy games. It's a cruel, nasty world out there and it's our duty to make the best of it—not to indulge in ridiculous dreams, but to be productive and useful!
• Karma Houdini Warranty: While Miss Minchin keeps the school in the book, here the story ends with her losing everything as punishment for all the horrible abuses she inflicted towards Sara, and she's reduced to working as a chimney sweep — with the same boy she had maltreated earlier.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Miss Minchin does so on several occasions:
    • After telling Sara that her father is dead, she blatantly forces Sara into servitude, taking all of her belongings, including her locket — which contains a picture of her mother and father, and threatens to have her arrested if she retrieves it.
    • She deliberately starves both Sara and Becky as punishment for bringing friends into the attic.
    • When she notices all the fine things that Ram Dass had given both Sara and Becky, she assumes that the girls stole them, and calls the police on them.
    • She recognizes Captain Crewe when she sees him in the Randolph house, but lies to the police that Sara has no father just to get her arrested.
  • Lavinia had her moments too, specifically when she blatantly walked across the floor with dirty shoes right after Sara had finished mopping it, and when she taunted Sara by telling her to not touch anything in her (Lavinia's) room with her "dirty hands," and rudely asks her when she last took a bath.
• Magical Asian: Ram Dass is a South Asian variant. It's hinted that he used some kind of magic to instantly put the finery, food, and new clothes in Sara's room overnight.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's implied that Ram Dass genuinely has some magic about him. It's the only explanation for Sara's room filling up with the finery so quickly (in the book he gradually does it over several months), and his goal seems to be to reunite father and daughter.
• Mistaken Identity: Thanks to a mix-up with their tags, Captain Crewe is briefly mistaken for Mr. Randolph's son John, who he was trying to save in the trenches.
• Mistaken for Thief: Miss Minchin discovers the things hidden in Sara's room and assumes she stole them.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The fun and jolly scene of Sara's birthday party gets interrupted with the news that Captain Crewe has died.
  • When Sara and the girls are peacefully bowing to Ram Dass from the attic room, Miss Minchin appears behind the girls and catches them.
  • Played for Laughs when Miss Amelia is hurriedly trying to find Sara to calm Lottie down during one of her tantrums. As soon as she finds Sara, Lottie cheerfully walks past them (the plan to steal back the locket now having succeeded).
  • The comedy scene of Miss Amelia and Francis trying to elope abruptly segues into Miss Minchin busting Sara for the stolen locket.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Eleanor Bron speaks French with no attempt at an accent in order to show how bad she is at it compared to Sara.
• Off to Boarding School: Sara has to live at a boarding school her mother attended because her father is going away to war.
• Off-into-the-Distance Ending: The film ends with Sara and Becky waving goodbye to their friends from the back of a pony-trap carriage as it drives away from the school.
• Ominous Hair Loss: Lavinia is "cursed" by Sara in response to her mistreatment. Later while obsessively brushing her hair later that evening, Lavinia finds a large strand of hair coming out along with the brush, prompting her to faint in shock. Of course, in this version she usually has a Beta Bitch brushing her hair for her, so this is possibly the first time she's done it herself — and therefore mistook stray hairs coming loose for it falling out.
• The Oner: Well, it is an Alfonso Cuarón (with Emmanuel Lubezki as cinematographer) joint. The camera tracks down a (foreshadowing) painting of Lucifer being cast from heaven and along the breakfast table as the girls pass a gossiping conversation down it. It's an understated example but impressive when you consider all the actors in it are young children who have to time their lines and engage in background business as the camera moves.
• Orphanage of Fear: Played with: the boarding school is clearly not an orphanage, but it briefly becomes one for Sara after her father is presumed killed in action, she is forced to work as a often mistreated servant in the school and she is left alone and penniless in the world.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Mr. Randolph's son is killed in the trenches. He's devastated by the loss and Sara leaves a yellow rose at his door to show her sympathy.
• Race Lift:
  • Becky. In the original, she is a typical Victorian-era Cockney girl and becomes a Token Black Friend in the film. With the setting changed from Britain to America, rendering a Cockney girl as black is a logical enough Cultural Translation.
  • Sara herself to a lesser extent. There are references to Sara's "brown hand" and "small, dark face" implying she might be mixed race. She's clearly white in the film. Of course, the aforementioned comments could just be a result of tanning in India.
• Rags to Riches: Not only does Sara become rich again, but her father adopts Becky.
• Redemption in the Rain: Captain Crewe and Sara are reunited in the middle of the rain.
• Regal Ringlets: While wealthy, Sara's hair is elegantly styled in long ringlets, which she loses when she becomes a servant. At the end of the film, when she has regained her wealth, her hair is once more worn in ringlets.
• Repeat Cut: Twice.
  • The shot of Sara jerking awake in shock at the luxurious makeover of her room and the food on the table is repeated twice from different angles.
  • It occurs again at the end of the film, when Lavinia hugs Sara.
• Say My Name: When Sara's father remembers who she is, he runs outside and shouts "Sara!"
• Scylla and Charybdis: After escaping to Mr. Randall's house in the climax, Sara is caught between the police and Miss Minchin at the front door and Captain Crewe, who, at this point, is presumed by Sara to be a stranger. Sara heads in her father's direction. This proves to be her saving grace, as captain Crewe remembers who he is just in time to save Sara from being seized by the police.
• Setting Update: This film relocates the story to New York, during World War I.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Becky appears now wearing finery like Sara at the end as she's adopted by Captain Crewe.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: The comical Amelia runs away with the milkman seconds before the dramatic climax. Sara is actually watching her go when Miss Minchin bursts in and accuses her of stealing the locket.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Between Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia. One is a thin, stern, and cruel businesswoman; the other is a heavyset, joyful, and energetic woman who is in love with a local milkman.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: A key divide between Sara and Miss Minchin is that Minchin has grown bitter after spending years unloved while Sara has kept herself hopeful. Because of this, among other possible reasons, Miss Minchin resents Sara even more for not seeing her world, and keeps working her to the bone in hopes that the little girl will face reality like a "true grown-up".
• Spared by the Adaptation: Like in the Shirley Temple version, Sara's father is alive. He's traumatized/amnesiac, but alive.
• The Storyteller: Sara's narratives are shown in detail, and become an important plot point.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Lavinia in the end.
• Troubled Abuser: Miss Minchin verbally and emotionally abuses Sara and Becky, but it’s stated in the novelization that she was never loved by anyone (it is implied Amelia was more loved than her and she got tired of living in her sister’s shadow) and is aware of her problems, but feels out of resources. It's also one of her few redeeming qualities which prevents her from being a complete Hate Sink.
• Troubled Fetal Position: During her first night in the attic, Sara curls up in this position in the middle of a "magic circle" she drew with chalk on the floor to try to feel safe (referencing how Rama drew a circle of protection for Sita).
• Villain Ball: In the climax, when Miss Minchin is trying to get Sara arrested for theft, they discover that Captain Crewe is alive. Minchin seals her own fate by hurriedly trying to claim Sara "has no father" and get her taken away — rather than admitting she made a mistake and apologising. Presumably she was also thinking of her Karma Houdini Warranty running out if she's discovered, which is exactly what happens when Captain Crewe remembers who he is.