Mistress Masham's Repose

Mistress Masham's Repose is a 2001 American animated fantasy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and based on the 1946 novel of the same name by T. H. White. It was directed by Steve Hickner and written by Karey Kirkpatrick and Michael J. Wilson, and stars the voices of Anna Popplewell, Albert Finney, Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren, John Mahoney, Ian McKellen, and Robin Williams. The film follows Maria, a ten-year-old orphan who lives on a derelict family estate. When she discovers a group of Lilliputians hiding in exile within the estate, Maria attempts to protect them from her wicked guardians.

Originally pitched to Walt Disney Productions in the early 1980s by producer Joe Hale during the production of The Black Cauldron, the film was cancelled when Hale and most of his production team were fired. After being in development hell for a decade, the film was later revived and fast-tracked by DreamWorks' animation studio in Glendale, California in 1996.

Mistress Masham's Repose was released in the United States on December 14, 2001 by DreamWorks Pictures. Upon release, it was met with positive reviews from critics, many of whom pointed to the art direction, script, John Powell's score, and faithfulness to its source material. However, while grossing $166 million worldwide on its $75 million budget, the film underperformed disappointingly at the box office, forcing a writedown of $29 million for DreamWorks.

Plot
Miss Maria is a ten-year-old orphan girl who lives on a large estate known as Malplaquet. Her life is not a happy one because her guardian, a fat, uncaring vicar named Mr. Hater, always leaves her in the hands of her prim, strict governess Miss Brown. The only two caring people that Maria has in her life are Miss Noakes, the household cook and a retired professor who lives out in the garden. To help herself feel better, she often takes long walks throughout the estate's grounds.

One day, while her tormentors are out of the way, Maria goes to a lake on the South Front known as the Quincunx, where she, to her delight, discovers a small island, which is inhabited by Lilliputians, or "little people". The island itself is covered blackberry bushes and nettles and there doesn't seem to be any way to cross them without any sort of pain. Maria reluctantly tries to venture through them, where she tears her skirt and gets some scratches on herself, but gets to the other side where she goes into a dome, inside, everything is so much more different, so much cleaner and somewhat geometrical. Maria then comes across a walnut shell, and finds that there is a baby in it. She picks the baby up, examining this baby in amazement. It fits in the palm of her hand, and it is incredibly small and its skin is ever so slightly mauve.

As Maria listens closely, she soon hears the soft mew of the miniature baby. Sweetened by this, she is almost entranced by the mere look and sound of the infant, but is snapped out of it by a sharp pain in her ankle. She jumps in both shock and pain, whilst making sure not to harm the baby. When she looks to see what stung her, Maria finds that it is an extremely diminutive woman, wearing a rust colored dress and holding what seems to be the tiniest harpoon in existence. Visibly fuming, the small woman begins to scream an odd language of some sort. The only understandable thing Maria heard was "Quinba Flestrina." Maria profusely tries to apologize to the small woman, and hands the baby back to her carefully, only to be jabbed again by the harpoon. Angrily, Maria sweeps up the baby, cradle and all, as well as the woman. However, not long after this, she begins to hear a buzzing, like a beehive.

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Voice cast

 * Anna Popplewell as Miss Maria
 * Albert Finney as Mr. Hater
 * Susan Sarandon as Miss Brown
 * Helen Mirren as Miss Noakes
 * John Mahoney as the Professor
 * Ian McKellen as Lord Admiral
 * Robin Williams as Trapper
 * Dan Castellaneta as Lloyd
 * Jim Cummings as Lilliputian Schoolteacher
 * Christopher Knights as Lookout Lilliputian
 * Frank Welker as Captain

ADR Group

 * Steve Alterman
 * David Cowgill
 * Tom Amundsen
 * Jeff Bennett
 * Doug Burch
 * Catherine Cavadini
 * Moosie Drier
 * Kat Cressida
 * Wendy Hoffman
 * Holly Dorff
 * Jeff Fischer
 * Aaron Fors
 * Barbara Iley
 * Roger L. Jackson
 * Mitch Carter
 * Nicholas Guest
 * Elisa Gabrielli
 * Lynnanne Zager
 * Al Rodrigo
 * Michelle Ruff
 * Patrick Pinney
 * Richard Steven Horvitz
 * Phil Proctor
 * Kath Soucie
 * Claudette Wells
 * Ruth Zalduondo

Development
Walt Disney Productions first attempted to develop an animated film based on Mistress Masham's Repose in the early 1980s. During the production of The Black Cauldron, producer Joe Hale and his production team were working on an adaptation of the novel. Animator Andreas Deja did some preliminary character designs for it. While Roy E. Disney supported the project shortly after the release of The Black Cauldron in 1985, then-Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg disliked it. Eventually, Hale and most of the team were fired, and the project languished.

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Casting
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Animation and design
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Release
Mistress Masham's Repose was originally scheduled for release in May 2001. The film was then moved forward to December 14, 2001 while Shrek was instead given the slot of May 2001.

Marketing
On May 18, 2001, a teaser trailer was released with DreamWorks' previous animated feature Shrek, followed by a second trailer in front of Osmosis Jones on August 10, 2001. The film was accompanied with a promotional campaign with licensees including Burger King and Mattel.

Home media
Mistress Masham's Repose was released on VHS and DVD on May 7, 2002. In December 2002, Variety reported it was the eighth best-selling home video release of the year selling 9.2 million copies and garnering $142 million.

Box office
Mistress Masham's Repose was projected to gross $20-25 million from 2,654 theaters in its opening weekend. It grossed $14.8 million in its opening weekend ranking third behind Ocean's Eleven and Vanilla Sky. In its second weekend, the film declined by a huge margin of 64%, grossing $5.3 million and dropped to No. 7.

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Mistress Masham's Repose holds a 75% "Fresh" rating based on 154 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. Its consensus states, "The studio behind The Prince of Egypt offers a film that shows their knack for material drama and painterly detail." On Metacritic, it holds a score of 64 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of A– on an A+ to F scale.

Main
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

Trailers
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.