(written December 2012)
A year ago... last week or something,
I saw “Arthur Christmas” and I loved the living tar out of it. I
had always meant to do a review, and I can’t remember why I didn’t
get around to it. Maybe I didn’t think it mattered, surely people
would flock to it, surely it would find its little moment in the sun,
SURELY it would at least get nominated for best animated
feature.
A year’s gone by and barely anyone
remembers it. I know I didn’t until a friend scrolled by it in red
box and I stopped her, promising if she hated it I’d get her
another out of my pocket. The next morning she found me in the Caf
breathlessly explaining it had her from the first line and was
incredibly disappointed she didn’t have time to finish the last
act. I asked if I could return it myself and promptly tore through it
all again. It wasn’t as good as I remembered it. It was better.
Arthur Christmas is, in a nut shell,
about the lineage of Santa Clause and the sticky familial tension
that arises from having to share “the greatest job in the world.”
Malcolm Clause, the current Santa is little more than a figure head
after his oldest son, Steve, has turned Christmas into a
technologically drenched military operation. There’s nothing he
wants more than to take over after his father’s 70th
mission, but Malcolm decides to keep going, devastating Steve and
causing one present for one child to go undelivered.
Arthur, the youngest and the most
naive, is mortified over the .00000000001% margin of error and sets
out with his grandfather, to make sure that Gwen Hines of Trelew UK
never has to live with knowledge of being the one child on earth
“Santa doesn’t care about.”
The script never lets up, if it’s
not being droll or acerbic it’s affecting and poignant. The cast
uniformly brings the goods, Bill Nighy (Grandsanta) in particular gets the
best lines by far, an opportunity he does not squander. His kneejerk
inhumane treatment of elves...
“Elf! Gift Wrap
your head!”
“There isn't
enough room to breathe! I've got nine seconds left before I black
out!”
“... you get
one breath!”
...is in itself worth the price of
the DVD. But you still have a thinly villainous Hugh Laurie, (Steve)
a stupendously adorable James Macavoy, (Arthur) and a scene stealing
Scottish giftwrapping ninja elf (Ashley Jenson). Forget what I just
said, Jenson is worth the whole DVD. Man, I haven’t even brought up
Henry Gregson-William’s score yet ... that too is
another beautiful part of what was already a very special project.
There has never been a Christmas film
a FRACTION as funny, well plotted, or genuinely heartfelt as this.
Yes, those are fighting words, and yes, I will fight for them. I mean
sure, you have to be in the right mindset for it, and I wasn’t
totally on board with it at first either. The “yes Virginia”
opening was a little too twee for my taste at the time, but it was
absolutely necessary and it never goes back to that well again until
the last minute or so, but by then it had me by the emotional
shorthairs and you’re welcome for that image.
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| What? OK I'm sorry! |
The film works simultaneously as a
loving tribute and bitter satire not of what Christmas has become
(because seriously how tired is that?) but what it has always been.
It’s about family, and most of the time families are hard to deal
with, they screw up, and they shatter your expectations. The point
is, or at least the point Arthur Christmas tries to make, is that people
need to take a step back, think about everyone’s needs and decide
what’s best for the whole.
Sometimes it’s compromise, sometimes
it’s a pink twinkle bike.
Please see Arthur Christmas.
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