First published in 1923, The Prophet by Lebanese American author Kahlil Gibran is one of the most successful and popular books of poetry ever produced. Selling more than 100 million copies in more than 40 languages, The Prophet is a collection of 26 illustrated poems that offer advice “On Love,” “On Marriage,” “On Family,” etc., in an effortless and disarming manner. Its words have permeated and persisted in society (“Love one another but make not a bond of love”), and The Prophet is passed around and dispersed as “the counterculture Bible.” If sales, longevity, and diversity were any indication, then a cinematic adaption of The Prophet ought to be gangbusters.

That must have been the thinking when writer/director Roger Allers (director of The Lion King) and producer Salma Hayek-Pinault (husband François Pinault is an executive producer) set to turn Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet into an animated family feature. They assembled an impressive pedigree of animators and vocal talents to help on their passion project, but the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry—especially when commerce is at stake.

Allers trims Gibran’s original 26 poems down to eight segments, each directed and designed by a different animator—“On Freedom,” Michal Socha; “On Children,” Nina Paley; “On Marriage,” Joann Sfar; “On Work,” Joan Gratz; “On Eating & Drinking,” Bill Plympton; “On Love,” Tomm Moore; “On Good & Evil,” Mohammed Saeed Harib; “On Death,” Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi. Those segments weave their way through the narrative, which is set in a seaside Mediterranean village populated by the poet, Mustafa (voiced by Liam Neeson), the woman who cleans his house, Kamila (Hayek), and her rambunctious daughter, Almitra (Quvenzhané Wallis), who constantly manages to find, and sometimes create, trouble.

Mustafa takes a liking to Almitra and bestows upon her the wisdom of his poems. Here is where The Prophet soars, with the individual animators breaking free of convention to explore the themes and textures of Gibran’s poetry.

While the animation of the framing device seems clunky and conventional, it is clearly designed for the children watching. It slyly lures them into the story before plopping them inside Mustafa’s poems, where complex ideas are matched with equally complex and charged images.

For the kids, this might work. For adults, the narrative is so cumbersome that it holds the movie back from creating the kind of lasting impression Gibran’s book has held for the past 90 years.

Animation is a remarkable medium to work in, for it allows the artists to conceive of possibilities beyond the plausible. It is on display most strongly in Plympton and Socha’s pieces, but all of the segments are reminders that the style and scope of animation are boundless. However, conventionality is a crutch too heavily leaned on, and The Prophet comes off as a tale of two movies. It’s a shame that the entire movie couldn’t better embrace the boundlessness of the animated poems. What it would have sacrificed in marketability it would have gained in artistry tenfold.

Kahil Gibran’s The Prophet (2014)
Directed by Roger Allers, Gaëtan Brizzi, Paul Brizzi, Joan C. Gratz, Mohammed Saeed Harib, Tomm Moore, Nina Paley, Bill Plympton, Joann Sfar, Michal Socha
Screenplay by Roger Allers
Based on the book by Kahlil Gibran
Produced by Salma Hayek, Clark Peterson, Ron Senkowski, Jose Tamez
Vocal performances by Liam Neeson, Salma Hayek, John Krasinski, Frank Langella, Alfred Molina, Quvenzhané Wallis
GKIDS, Rated PG, Running time 85 minutes, Premiered May 17, 2014 at the Cannes Film Festival

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The above review first appeared in the pages of Boulder Weekly Vol. 23, No. 3, “Imbued with poetry, hindered by commerce.”