David Gordon Green’s Nutcrackers opens with a group of four mischievous young kids (portrayed by the real-life siblings Homer, Ulysses, Arlo, and Atlas Janson) who, in a bit of late-night shenanigans, trespass at a local amusement park and carelessly cause some damage to the facilities. In the following scene, David Gordon Green’s latest feature introduces Ben Stiller as Michael Maxwell, arriving in small-town Ohio driving his ritzy yellow Porsche and glued to his phone while trying to manage work-related tasks back at home. Which is to say, his fish-out-of-water presence within his new surroundings is immediately emphasized. We’re then clued into the fact that Michael is the quartet of mischief-makers’ uncle, as well as a high-maintenance, successful Chicago senior development manager. As these things go, Michael, without any preparation, has found out that in the absence of the kids’ recently deceased parents, he has suddenly been hit with the demanding responsibility of serving as temporary guardian for these rascals over the weekend while suitable foster sorted out. It’s quite predictable, then, how Nutcrackers will go: the dramedy setup is primed to function as an exploration of the myriad differences central to the film’s narrative, be it the generational gap or the contrasts between opulent urban living and the quaintness of middle America, while offering the requisite character arcs and feel-good themes of love, family, and liberation.
Although Nutcrackers’ over-familiarity neither thoroughly develops any true challenges for Michael in his bid to win the affections of his lightly rebellious nephews or gets close to a more profound portrait of adolescent struggles, what does work here is Stiller’s reliable presence (comfortably deadpan), as well as his impressive rapport with the Janson brothers. Less successfully, viewers are inundated along the way with occasional visual motifs that seek to delineate the countryside’s pastoral ways from Michael’s city comforts, as well as some bawdy but banal jokes — for instance, the sheer amount of kids farting, or Michael helpfully explaining that wiener, dick, and penis are “three names for the same thing.” But when the film focuses on a lonely uncle who, as his sister used to describe to the children, is incapable of love, things settle into that cozy corner of holiday viewing, with Michael expanding his emotional dimension with regard to his nephews, as well as predictably finding a love interest in the beautiful local family services employee Gretchen (Linda Cardellini). This all culminates in quite an unconventional version of the titular ballet being mounted as the film’s centerpiece, with Michael hoping the performance will convince someone to foster the children, though viewers know how things will ultimately turn out.
Visually, Nutcrackers is a little less predictable. Green — coming off a reboot of the Halloween franchise that featured three rather regrettable entries — shoots the film in 35mm, which is certainly a surprise for a streaming, holiday-themed dramedy (although the film isn’t quite as Christmas-y as viewers might expect). But then there’s also Nutcrackers‘ seemingly random, sap-inspired directorial decisions — the campy slo-mo employed multiple times here, for example, is patently absurd — and in the wake of this strange visual character, the film’s prevailing atmosphere begins to feel bizarrely inspired by similar lightweight family offerings of the ’90s and early–2000s, like The Mighty Ducks or even Cheaper by the Dozen. What’s different about Green’s film, then, is that very few films these days that seem to be informed by that particular heartwarming well feel this earnest or genuinely throwback rather than merely reductive. So despite failing to ever truly impress either in its comedic gags or bids at zaniness, Nutcrackers does tickle a nostalgic pleasure center when it is at its best, giving viewers a lightly entertaining bit of holiday viewing that stands just a slight cut above the season’s usual glossy, assembly line style.
DIRECTOR: David Gordon Green; CAST: Ben Stiller, Linda Cardellini, Tim Heidecker, Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson; DISTRIBUTOR: Hulu; STREAMING: November 29; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 44 min.
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