The Disney live-action remake trend of the past several years has produced - to put it
mildly - an extremely mixed bag of films that seem unsure of their place in the Mouse House’s legacy. They’re mostly tolerated by audiences, but there’s always a question of whether any of this is necessary when the originals they’re attempting to bank off of are considered flawless and timeless. That being said, there have been a few particularly odd gems to come out of Disney’s recent live-action slate: Kenneth Branagh’s 2015 Cinderella, to name a direct remake of an animated classic that actually lives up to the original. But it’s 2018’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (dir. Lasse Halström and Joe Johnston) that is truly deserving of a re-evaluation or, at the very least, more attention despite its flaws.
This Disney-fied retelling of the Christmas-set ballet was mostly written off as another
CGI-filled slog upon its initial release. Set in Victorian London on Christmas Eve, it (roughly)
follows the plot of Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet, as young Clara finds herself drawn into a
fantastical world of snowflakes, sweets, and magic while attempting to find the key to a
mysterious gift her late mother left her. To be fair, this film does have many of the hallmarks of Disney’s more forgettable live-action offerings - thin plotting borrowed from other, more successful franchises, an unnecessarily long runtime, underwritten characters, and, yes, a bit too many computer-generated creatures that will likely give younger viewers nightmares. But despite these flaws, it’s the technical execution of this story and the talent involved with this production that give this film some surprising life under its muddy exterior.
In my opinion, this film is simply too strange and makes too many unexpectedly bold choices to be tossed aside the way it was at the box office in 2018. This is a fun Christmastime adventure that held the potential to be something very special if it wasn’t trying so hard to be "Pirates of the Caribbean For Girls," and instead embraced its roots in classical ballet and fairy tale-style storytelling.
One area where this film really shines is in its visuals - the world of the Four Realms is
extremely vibrant, and the color palette here feels very well-crafted and intentional. It’s bright and loud, but it never feels like visual muck; it’s balanced and controlled in a way that helps draw the viewer in, and it’s woven into the remarkable production design and costumes beautifully. Linus Sandgren’s cinematography really makes this world feel grand, but grounded in a way that gives the film some real texture. The choice to shoot on Super 35mm rather than digital went a long way in giving this film a look that feels genuinely inspired. The performances are another aspect of this film that hints at how this could have
soared under different direction. This absolutely should have been a star-making vehicle for
Mackenzie Foy, who gives a wonderful performance as Clara that works in spite of a script that seems uninterested in making this character anything more than an amalgamation of every female Disney protagonist we’ve had in the past several years (that is, a headstrong young woman who’s good with machines and would rather be the one doing the saving than being saved). Morgan Freeman is great as the enigmatic Drosselmeyer, who has much too little screen time here. But the real standout is Kiera Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, who’s doing what I can only describe as a more unhinged and sinister version of Ariana Grande’s Galinda from this year’s Wicked. I mean this as a compliment - the degree to which Knightley loses herself in this role and plays Sugar Plum fully as a cartoon character is massively entertaining, and seems to embrace the whimsy and magic inherent in this story that much of the film seems to strangely be downplaying.
This is where the film ultimately falls short of being the genuinely magical ride it could
have been - its tone and the way it chooses to tell this story are missing the point of the source material, and robbing the narrative of much of its impact as a result. The Nutcracker ballet is a fairy tale about the whimsy and imagination of childhood - where it’s light on plot, it makes up for with a genuine feeling of wonder. It’s an abstract kind of tale that’s more about the ideas it represents than the actual events of the story. Four Realms chooses to tell it with the seriousness and straightforwardness of Lord of the Rings, and therein lies the problem. The emotional center of the film feels hollow because we’re so focused on the politics of the fantasy world, there’s no room for developing any of these characters beyond the surface level. There’s no interest here in exploring childhood imagination, we’re just moving from point A to point B because this film wants to feel more like a typical big action/adventure blockbuster than taking any major creative risks.
There’s a sequence in the film’s second act, however, that does successfully capture that feeling of wonder: our central characters gather in a theater to watch a ballet chronicling
the origins of their world. It’s the film’s most obvious nod to the source material, and also,
interestingly, an homage to Disney’s Fantasia. It’s the most stunning and gorgeous scene in the film. We take a break from the gritty high fantasy and all of a sudden, things are allowed to slow down and become more abstract. The dancers, the practical sets and props, the creativity and tactility on display here feel like what a big-budget adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s ballet could and should be - it’s too bad we only get one scene of it. Nonetheless, the technical craft on display here is really something to admire. Every penny of this film’s budget feels like it’s onscreen. The detail in the production design, costumes, makeup, and hairstyling is incredible. James Newton Howard’s score beautifully weaves Tchaikovsky’s original music into the narrative, and Sandgren’s cinematography is perhaps the best any of Disney’s live-action remakes have looked. And the performances do mostly keep a below-average script afloat. But one can’t help but wonder what this film could have been if it wasn’t so focused on being a blockbuster and stuck more to its roots.
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