Nutcrackers (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – In the most unlikely of places, four siblings find a loving shelter in an unexpected turn of circumstances. This endearing comedy-drama draws inspiration from actual events and deftly crafts a gripping story that unites everyone.

My Take – Personally, I’ve always enjoyed Ben Stiller as an actor, mainly as he tries to bring a spark to his performances irrespective of the quality of the film he is featured in. An important factor that made him so spectacularly captivating in the Meet the Parents and Night at the Museum films, among others.

That’s probably why I was so surprised that the ‘Zoolander’ actor decided to return in his first leading role since 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories, that too for a film that employs a screenplay which offers absolutely no surprises and a premise that’s familiar all the way.

Helmed by director David Gordon Green who once again shifts gears, after licking his wounds with the failure of Halloween Ends (2022) and The Exorcist: Believer (2023), the Hulu release isn’t the kind of film that’s insufferable to sit through, with its mushy melodrama and overblown Christmas aesthetics, it simply just fails to justify its existence.

Yes, it elicits some chuckles, but it also doesn’t mine a premise that could have been the foundation for an emotionally resonant or even darkly comedic story. Instead choosing to move awkwardly between melancholic drama and half-hearted attempts at humor, never fully committing to either.

While the film might appeal to someone who simply wants to pass the time with a holiday-themed feature, for a casual viewer it ultimately fails to provide anything memorable or enjoyable. Making it a disappointing entry in the holiday film lineup and Ben Stiller‘s mostly stellar filmography, lacking the warmth and joy that make the subgenre and the comedian starrers so special.

The story follows Michael (Ben Stiller), a workaholic real estate guy, who was on the verge of closing the deal of a lifetime when he’s called away from Chicago to rural Ohio. There, his estranged sister and her husband have tragically died tragically, leaving behind four feral nephews, Justice (Homer Janson), Junior (Ulysses Janson), Samuel (Atlas Janson) and Simon Kicklighter (Arlo Janson), to whom he is now technically guardian.

He’s also informed by family services agent Gretchen (Linda Cardellini) that the promising foster candidates she had been eyeing to take the boys have fallen through, implying Michael to take his job more seriously. However, he intends to stay just long enough to get them placed in foster homes, but his time with the boys ends up going on for longer than he’d hoped and soon finds himself helping them put on a special show for Christmas.

Apparently based on an idea came from director Green who was inspired after meeting the four spirited young sons of an old friend. This is the kind of setup that would have typically worked if it had done something more interesting, and less relied on familiar tropes about a male lead turning his back on work-centric big city life for the comforts of the farmhouse. And writer Leland Douglas’s script isn’t funny or affecting enough to distract us from the lazy formula of it.

Truth to be told, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, especially one that has been so richly successful and beloved. As the idea of an urbanite regaining their soul away from the hustle and bustle of the city life taps into desire of the audiences.

But these kind of films also do not have extended scenes in which an uncle tries to teach his home-schooled nephews the correct word to use for the male anatomy as they reel off a string of possibilities. Most of the time, the film effectively portrays Michael’s fish-out-of-water situation, as well as the tenuous bonds between him and his nephews. Though you can probably guess resolution just from reading the logline, but you can’t shake the feeling that it is simply following expected plot beats.

We also never get a clear sense of how the boys were raised before losing their parents, save for their homeschooling, but we can only assume discipline varied. And as we head toward the big final show, director Green and screenwriter Douglas scramble to make us cry, the relentless string-pulling and the clumsy life lessons fail to move and only serve to remind us of the film’s emptiness.

To his credit, Ben Stiller does more than just sleepwalk through it all, but his character is hazy and underwritten. But what makes it worse is that he’s overshadowed by the kids in most of the scenes. The four of them share easy demeanor with each other making them feel less like child actors and more like a pack of little hooligans. They come by it naturally, presumably, since in real life, they are brothers.

In supporting roles, Linda Cardellini is charming as always, Edi Patterson is amusing, while Toby Huss is underutilized. On the whole, ‘Nutcrackers‘ is a middling Christmas comedy that offers little joy throughout.