Source Material Author E.T.A Hoffmann has to be rolling in his grave. Universally panned by critics upon its release, 'The Nutcracker: The Untold Story' is a 2010 British-Hungarian 3D film loosely adapted from the 1892 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet of the same name. It tells the story of a young girl named Mary (Elle Fanning) receiving a nutcracker toy soldier on Christmas Eve, only to be swept away from her 1920s Vienna home into a magical world ruled by evil rats. Without spoiling the movie too much, I don't mind the creepy and unnerving fascist take of the villain the Rat King (John Turturro) too much. I just wish the frame story time period and settling match what director Andrei Konchalovsky was going for. Having the events take place first in 1933 when the Nazism came to power in Germany and continue into the Anschluss of Austria and then during and post war years would have work better whenever Mary wakes up from her constant dream; only to fall back asleep into her fantasies unable to cope with the true harsh realities of her world. The dreams could had been a thematic parallel metaphor of the mentally and physical trauma that young children go through during this time period; as they try to make sense of it all. A good example of this done well on movie form has to be 2006 "Pan's Labyrinth' that deals with a child dealing with her world during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War through fantasy. Sad to say this holiday movie doesn't reach those same levels of merit. The antagonists in this movie come across doesn't come across as a serious threat. Even with the shocking Holocaust burning of toys imagery, the swing dancing and jazz singing from them felt like its springtime for Hitler awful in not an ironic funny way. Truth be told, most of the performers in this film couldn't carry a tune. The singing in this is glass breaking. To add onto the pain, the composer Eduard Artemyev and songwriter Tim Rice felt that lyrics should be added to the ballet music even if they weren't made for it. A good example is the music numbers from fame theoretical physicist Albert Einstein (Nathan Lane). Having him sing about the theory of relativity and break the fourth wall is extremely unfaithful to the source material, but it also completely changes the plot of what made the original story/ballet such a magical tale. Even if the filmmakers truly change the settling to fit with the events of 1930s more. Having Einstein as the uncle would give lucky pebbles doesn't really make much sense. Unless the original plan was to have the family Jewish; which beg the question why are they celebrating Christmas over Hanukkah!? Also, if the film isn't about childhood's trauma then why is fame neurologist Sigmund Freud played by Richard Phillips even there? The choices of supporting characters is all over the place; ranging from talking monkey named Gielgud voice by Alan Cox but played by both Peter Elliot and Daniel Peacock to a fat middle aged clown named Tinker (Hugh Sachs) that unintentionally resembles serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Then there is Sticks (Africa Nile) a drummer that get his head ripped off. If that wasn't disturbing enough, the CGI visuals special effects for ugly looking Nutcracker (Voiced by Shirley Henderson) is creepy and unsettling with his dead eyed gaze. He also looked very sloppy and fake being composited onto the sets very poorly. Yet the same can be said with the other special effects like the pet shark and barely dancing ballet ornaments. The last-minute 3D that shelfed the film for two years really does expose how awfully unrealistic the effects for the action were. Nonetheless even the Nutcracker is standing still. His presence and interaction with the actors don't look slightly convincing. To tell you the truth, the real performers are not any better. Turturro in an Andy Warhol get up is too over the top goofy. Fanning is reservedly dull & Aaron Michael Drozin as Mary's little brother Max is directionless and too unlikeable. No wonder why upon the film released, it bombed at the box office grossing $20 million against a $90 million budget. Andrei Konchalovsky indeed turn his dream project for 20 years into a nightmare that I doubt even his kids and grandchildren would love. Overall: There is probably a good reason why this movie has the subtitled the untold story. It's not a movie worth telling. Not even it's so bad, it's good crack at it recommending. Certainly not. It hurts to watch. A pain in the nuts.
Review of The Nutcracker: The Untold Story
