Nutcracker: The Motion Picture

Nutcracker: The Motion Picture is a 1986 Christmas film based on the ballet "The Nutcracker" and E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King."
==Plot==
Drosselmeyer, a clockmaker and toymaker, is in his workshop. Suddenly getting an idea, he begins building on an intricate mechanical project resembling a cross between a model castle, a music box, and a toy theatre. After it is apparently completed, he falls asleep at his work table. The toy theatre stage opens; the rest of the film is implied to take place on this stage. Clara, a girl on the verge of adolescence, is asleep in her bedroom, dreaming of dancing with a prince before being interrupted by her younger brother Fritz, who summons a giant rat to bite her hand, turning her ugly. She wakes up from the dream in terror. But when she goes to her family's Christmas party and sees Fritz playing with a hand puppet rat that strongly resembles the one in the dream, she becomes very uneasy.
Clara, her family, and all their guests dance at the Christmas party. Drosselmeyer, who is a friend of the family, enters the room and gives toys to the children. He also entertains them, especially Clara, by displaying the castle he was creating at the film's start, including moving figurines of a ballerina and a sword dancer. The guests are entertained by a trio of masquerade dancers, but Clara is noticeably uncomfortable around Drosselmeyer, who keeps looking at her. Suddenly, a nutcracker drops off the Christmas tree. Clara is amused by the nutcracker and dances happily around the room, but Fritz snatches it away and damages it with a toy sword. Drosselmeyer mends the nutcracker with a handkerchief. As the guests depart, Clara and Fritz are sent off to bed.
Near midnight, Clara goes downstairs to find her nutcracker. As the clock strikes twelve, the Christmas tree gets bigger and all the toy soldiers, as well as the nutcracker, come to life and battle the mice. A seven-headed Mouse King appears through a hole in the floor and grows to giant size. When the mice overpower the soldiers and the Nutcracker himself is threatened, Clara throws her slipper at the Mouse King, changing him into an ordinary mouse. What remains of the giant Mouse King is his coat and his crown. The Nutcracker crawls in the sleeve after the fleeing mouse and Clara follows him, becoming an adult as she wanders through the coat's passageways. She emerges from the coat onto a wintry pavilion, where she finds the Nutcracker transformed into a handsome prince. They dance romantically, and as they depart the snow falls and the snow fairies appear to dance the "Waltz of the Snowflakes".
Clara and the Prince sail away to a castle where they are welcomed by the Prince's Royal Court. There, the Prince and the jealous, one-eyed Pasha, who strongly resembles Drosselmeyer, develop a rivalry over Clara. Under the Pasha's direction, the members of the court perform divertissements, and Clara performs the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy". She and the Prince dance a romantic "Pas de Deux". At the end, she and the Prince, locked in each other's arms, are magically levitated by the Pasha after bidding farewell to the Court. Suddenly the Pasha waves his hand, and Clara and her Prince are separated and begin to free-fall. Before they can hit the ground, the Prince turns back into a nutcracker and Clara (a young girl again) is jolted awake from what has turned out to be a dream.
==Themes==
Nutcracker: The Motion Picture, like the Stowell-Sendak stage production on which it is based, is presented as Clara's coming-of-age story. It depicts Clara's inner conflict and confusion, as well as the beginning of her sexual awakening, as she approaches adolescence; similar themes occur in many of Sendak's books. The film especially emphasizes the darker aspects of Hoffmann's original story and the significance of dreams and the imagination. The cinematography, by making considerable use of closeups and medium shots, attempts to bring viewers closer to the psychology of the main characters.
==Reception==
Reviewers largely praised the film's design, but criticized the camerawork and editing, particularly for its use of closeups and medium shots. For example, in The New York Times, Janet Maslin gave Nutcracker a mixed review, describing it as "an ornate film that takes a sophisticated and ambitious approach to its material. And it shows why there's no good substitute for simply holding the camera still and letting dancers do what they do best." In the Los Angeles Times, Sheila Benson lauded the production design as "the Sendak spirit triumphant," but criticized the PNB dancers and the editing: "We see faces when we want to see whole figures ... Unless Ballard is cutting away out of kindness, which is a possibility." Roger Ebert's Chicago Sun Times review was similarly mixed: "It has been staged with great care and considerable beauty but it is nevertheless just a respectable version of a cultural artifact."
Ballard responded to criticism about the editing in a post-release The New York Times interview, saying that the editing style was not what he had initially planned, but was a necessary result of the tight filming schedule.
The film was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Family Motion Picture Drama in 1988.
==Release==
The film was released on VHS, Betamax, and Laserdisc a few times in the 1980s and 1990s by Paramount Home Video, KVC Home Video, GoodTimes Home Video, and PolyGram Video respectfully. In 2011, MGM Home Entertainment through their Limited Edition Collection label and through 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released it on DVD for the first time with the film's theatrical trailer as the only bonus material. In December 2017, Olive Films (under license from MGM) re-released the film on DVD and Blu-ray.
==See also==
* List of Christmas films
==References==
==External links==
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Category:1986 films
Category:American Christmas films
Category:Christmas films
Category:1980s films
Category:Films based on plays
Category:Films based on short fiction
Category:Atlantic Releasing films
Category:Films based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King
Category:Films set in Europe
Category:Films set in Russia