Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
After the death of Lama Dorje, Tibetan Buddhist monks find three children — one American and two Nepalese — who may be the rebirth of their great teacher.
Little Buddha is visually ravishing — Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is among his most lush and painterly work, making the Siddhartha sequences genuinely stunning. However, the film is tonally uneven, awkwardly stitching together the modern Seattle storyline (which feels flat and dramatically inert) with the lavish historical Siddhartha segments. Keanu Reeves as the Buddha is famously miscast, delivering a stiff performance that undercuts the spiritual weight Bertolucci aims for. The supporting cast in the Nepalese/Tibetan threads fares better. The narrative resolution is gentle but anticlimactic, and the ending lacks dramatic payoff. The concept of blending a contemporary reincarnation mystery with a full dramatization of the Buddha's life is genuinely ambitious, though the execution is uneven enough to keep Novelty from excelling.