Film Review: 'Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet'

posted on: Mar 23, 2015

 

 

Think of “Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet” as a gift: a work of essential spiritual enlightenment, elegantly interpreted by nine of the world’s leading independent animators, all tied up and wrapped in a family-friendly bow by “The Lion King” director Roger Allers. A longtime passion project for producer Salma Hayek-Pinault, Lebanese philosopher-poet Gibran’s cherished guide to life, death, love, art and so forth doesn’t naturally lend itself to bigscreen interpretation, and at first, the pic’s framing device seems too silly for such soulful subject matter. But the freshly scripted wraparound doesn’t shy away from grown-up concerns, while potentially broadening the book’s reach to younger audiences as well. Although Hayek had hoped to land a higher-profile distrib, she will probably have better luck with the toon champs at GKids, whose white-glove release efforts have netted six Oscar nominations so far.

Source: variety.com