Publisher's Synopsis
Sara Crewe (Liesel Matthews) is the sweet daughter of Captain Richard Crewe (Liam Cunningham), a wealthy and honest aristocrat living in India. Sara's mother died along with her baby sister when she was very young, and she has to leave her beloved childhood home and friends when her father volunteers to fight for the British Army as an officer in World War I. Captain Crewe puts Sara in a girls' boarding school in New York and instructs the cruel and selfish headmistress Miss Maria Minchin (Eleanor Bron) to spare no expense making sure his daughter will be comfortable while he is away. He has reserved her the school's largest suite and gives Sara a special locket of her mother's picture, and a French doll named Emily, telling her that if she wants to talk to him, just speak to Emily and he will hear it. Though she finds the strict rules and Miss Minchin's harsh attitude stifling, Sara becomes popular among the girls, including the scullery maid Becky (Vanessa Lee Chester), for her kindness and powerful sense of imagination. She writes constant letters to her father, which are a great source of happiness for him on the battlefield.Due to a body being misidentified, Captain Crewe is wrongfully pronounced dead when he is actually seriously injured and suffering from amnesia, and the British government takes his company and assets, putting Crewe and Sara in debt. When Miss Minchin hears the news, she is in the middle of throwing a lavish birthday party for Sara, hoping to extort more money from her father. When Crewe's solicitor arrives and tells her there will be no more money, Miss Minchin is furious. Since Sara is now penniless and has no known relatives, Miss Minchin decides to move her to the attic with Becky to work as a servant where she will report to the cook Mabel (Peggy Miley) at 5 a.m. Miss Minchin also confiscates all of Sara's personal belongings, including her locket, as compensation for her financial losses, leaving her with only Emily and a book.Meanwhile, the elderly neighbour Charles Randolph (Arthur Malet) has received word that his son John, who is also fighting in Europe, is missing in action. He is asked to identify a soldier suffering from amnesia, but he is discouraged to discover it is not John. His wise Indian assistant Ram Dass (Errol Sitahal) encourages him to take in the man anyway, reminding him that he may know what happened to his son.Though her life is bleak, Sara remains kind to others and continues to hold onto her belief that all girls are princesses. Sara and Becky later play a chimney prank on Miss Minchin after she reprimands a young chimney sweep boy (Jonás Cuarón). Sara even shows sympathy toward Miss Minchin's sister Amelia (Rusty Schwimmer). Ram Dass, who lives in the attic of the Randolph house, is brought to notice Sara and Becky by the household's monkey and hears Sara telling imaginative stories to Becky. He mentions the girls to his employer, saying he would like to make some of their imaginings come true.