“Oh my garland! This is amazing.”
Noelle Kringle — “Noelle”
I love Christmas movies.
Many of my favorites tend to be sugary and sentimental. Some are just silly fun.
I’ve reviewed a number of Christmas movies on this blog. These days, it seems like most of the holiday fare released is either on cable/satellite channels like Hallmark or Lifetime, or on streaming giants like Netflix.
Last November I reviewed the Netflix original “The Christmas Chronicles” (starring Kurt Russell) and wrote of the movie that it “will never be mistaken for high art, but is likable enough that your family should have a good time with it this holiday season.”
Disney+ has entered the streaming wars, and one of their first original offerings on the service is the Christmas movie “Noelle” starring Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader (as Santa’s kids Noelle and Nick Kringle).
When the patriarch of the Kringle clan decides its time to think about the future — and time for his son Nick to start his Santa training — things don’t go smoothly.
Young Nick lacks the confidence to be Santa Claus — and the Santa hat he is presented with on Christmas Eve is too big. This concerns Nick, but his father assures, “it will fit you when you fit it.”
His precocious sister Noelle longs to be more than a player on the sidelines. Young Noelle wants to be like her father. “I would like to do what you do,” she says to her father (not being Santa, per se, but having a greater hand in the Christmas gift process).
Noelle’s father suggests her ability to make everyone jolly with her cards, Christmas cheer, and support of her brother is a noble task unto itself.
The narrative moves forward to Noelle and Nick as adults. Their father has died, and it is Nick’s time to become the 23rd Kringle to wear the red hat.
He is uncomfortable flying a sleigh and dealing with all manner of duties related to being Santa Claus. The big question is whether he’ll be ready for Christmas.
Noelle dutifully makes intricate pop-up cards and spreads Christmas cheer. She likes to eat waffles and has a small, white reindeer named “Snow Cone.”
Noelle’s mother (Julie Hagerty) insists her daughter do her job and give her “brother some Christmas spirit” — to avoid a Christmas disaster.
As a result, Noelle does a yeoman’s job trying to tutor her hopeless brother on the intricacies of Christmas gift giving (we learn, among other things, that what all kids want for Christmas is an iPad).
One day — when brother and sister are enjoying mugs of “double hot chocolate” at the Polar Express Cafe — Nick says, “sometimes I dream about getting out and finding someplace warm, where I can stretch and relax and just breathe, you know?”
Noelle says he should, and suggests, “you can’t be Santa if you’re having a nervous breakdown.”
So, she encourages him to look for a destination in an issue of “Travel & Leisure” and get away for the weekend — Noelle later discovers it is Phoenix, AZ.
The problem is that he decides he doesn’t want to leave Phoenix (where he becomes a yoga instructor) and Noelle (who has become persona non grata at the North Pole) heads to the desert to fetch him home — with her elf nanny Polly (Shirley MacLaine) in tow.
In the meantime, tech cousin Gabe (Billy Eichner) is put in place as Santa Claus.
Interesting setup, right?
The premise is sort of like a cross between Will Ferrell’s “Elf” and the brilliant Aardman Animation movie “Arthur Christmas.”
Unfortunately, the rest of the story is somewhat uneven.
Along the way Noelle and Polly strike a business deal with the manager (Diana Maria Riva) at the mall where their sleigh crash lands. They also become friends with a private eye (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and his son (Maceo Smedley), who they “hire” to find Nick.
Part of me wonders if the “fish out of water” aspects of the story — where Noelle is searching around Phoenix for her brother — would have worked better in a more overwhelming setting — like, say, New York City?
It’s hard to say for sure (and a more urban setting wouldn’t have fit the notion of a “relaxing” getaway for Nick).
Anna Kendrick and Bill Hader are both likable in the film, and do the best they can with the material given. “Noelle” just has trouble mixing the ingredients together to make a frothy holiday concoction.
Don’t get me wrong, there are certain charming moments in the film — a particular scene where Noelle visits a young deaf girl is a prime example.
I honestly think they could have snipped and tucked a few things in the last 20 minutes to give the film a stronger ending. I won’t go into spoilers here, but the filmmakers probably could have ended the film at the 1 hour and 22 minute mark and achieved better results.
The message of the film emphasized the notion that anyone — with the right spirit in his/her heart — can be Santa Claus. That was a good message to build the film around. To amplify that message, sometimes a “less is more” approach is a more effective one to take.
While “Noelle” is a cute diversion for the holidays, it doesn’t quite achieve the quality that contemporary classics like “Elf” and “The Santa Clause” enjoy in the pop culture zeitgeist.
That said, it’s not often these days that studios release G-rated “live action” movies.
Check out “Noelle” on Disney+ and let me know what you think!
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