Klaus (2019): Written by Sergio
Pablos, Jim Mahoney, and Zach Lewis, directed by Sergio Pablos.
Starring: Jason Schwartzman, J. K. Simmons, Rashida Jones,
Will Sasso, Joan Cusack, and Norm Macdonald. Running Time: 97
minutes.
Rating: 3.5/4
The scene of holiday films has been a
rather stuffed one for a long time. The canon of truly great
Christmas films seems set in stone, and most new ones that come out
fail to make much of an impact and are easily forgotten, if indeed
anyone sees them at all. Every so often, though, one breaks through,
one that finds a new angle on a tale so worked over I expected I
could never be surprised again. Klaus, the directorial debut
of Sergio Pablos after a long career of animating for both Disney and
Dreamworks, is one such film. It's a sweet and charming alternative
take on the origins of Santa Claus that just hit Netflix, and whose
discovery added an extra sparkle to my holidays.
We begin in as different a setting as
any, a military-like complex for postmen, where Jesper, the lazy and
wholly unambitious son of the owning family, is finally forced to
take responsibility for his life when he is sent far, far north to
Smeerensburg. The freezing, ice-covered town has a legendary
reputation for its gloomy, despondent, and backwards atmosphere,
stoked by a long-running "Hatfield/McCoy" style fued
between its two main families, the Ellingboes and the Krums. He is
given a clear goal of 6,000 postmarked letters to be sent within the
town by year's end, otherwise he'll be stuck there and cut off from
the family riches.
His introduction to the place is as
hilariously inept as you would imagine, and he soons starts to worry
that he's got no chance in hell of meeting his target. His despair
at ever finding a way out of the place is further stoked by the local
boatman (Norm Macdonald) and schoolteacher (Rashida Jones), both of
whom have long since given up ever changing the poisonous dynamics of
the town. Things start to turn, though, when he decides to make one
last effort and travel across the island to the home of a lonesome
woodsman, the physically huge Klaus. Voiced by the ever-magnificent
J. K. Simmons, he is reticent and surly, but has a clear love and
passion for making children smile. After discovering that the man is
a gifted craftsman of toys and has a whole warehouse filled with
amazing contraptions, Jesper decides that this could be his ticket
out; he begins to slowly improvise and spread tales of the magical
Klaus through the children of the town, eventually convincing them to
abandon bad behavior and the fights of their parents in favor of good
deeds and writing letters (postmarked by Jesper personally, of
course) in the hopes of getting a new toy by the next morning.
The animation is CGI, but with a
different look and texture that makes it feel fresh and unique; the
images are beautiful and flowing, yet look almost like woodcuts, or
hand-drawn images from an old children's book. The town starts out
forbidding and gray, but color and light, as well as wind, are used
to great effect in bringing the screen to life when the story needs
it most. The score is equally affecting as well, though the movie
could have gone without the handful of moments when a pop song comes
up, as those are the parts of the film most likely to feel dated
later on.
The voice acting is a lot of fun as
well, with Simmons as the clear highlight; he is a perfect voice for
Santa, a voice so fitting that a) I can't believe it took this long
for him to do the role, and b) I don't know if I can ever go back to
another Klaus again. The take on what leads to him becoming the
bringer of joy and gifts is a different angle as well, a man of true
heart struggling to deal with his own past while still not losing
that spark of love that makes him a truly special person. There is a
backstory, but it's handled effectively without overindulging in
unneeded details, and the resolution at the end of the film involving
both his and Jesper's fate is (without spoiling) genuinely magical.
If there are quips to be had, it's
where the fact that this is a children's film clearly affected the
narrative in a few places; the conflicts that occur between the
"good" characters are set up and resolved along very
typical lines, and they are moments the film could very well have
done without. The heads of the respective families in the town, who
have a vested interest in the miserable status quo continuing
unchanged, insert themselves to provide a reason for a third-act
action setpiece that, again, is well-done, but isn't anything we
haven't seen before and simply isn't as interesting as the budding
friendship between Klaus and Jesper.
No matter. The film is content to be
what it is, and what it is is a beautiful animated film that is here
to offer us something new to enjoy over the holidays. This is one
worth seeing with the whole family.
-Noah Franc
No comments:
Post a Comment