Nutcrackers – Review

Cert – Recommended ages 12+, Run-time – 1 hour 45 minutes, Director – David Gordon Green

Chicago-based real estate dealer Michael (Ben Stiller) finds himself stuck on an Ohio farm looking after his recently-orphaned nephews (Homer, Ulysses, Arlo and Atlas Janson), however with Christmas approaching his stay is continuously extended.

Nutcrackers is an undoubtedly familiar festive comedy. Director David Gordon Green, making another tonal shift in his filmography, this time away from horror legacy sequels, has cited Uncle Buck as a key influence on this particular film, alongside his friend’s children who, after meeting on their family farm where much of Nutcrackers is based, he decided needed a film and so got screenwriter Leland Douglas to form just this. However, Ben Stiller’s Michael Maxwell is a much less relaxed, and infinitely more reluctant, carer than John Candy’s Buck Russell.

Travelling from his busy Chicago real estate job to the countryside of Ohio to look after his four nephews (Homer, Ulysses, Arlo and Atlas Janson) and sort out their getting into foster care after his sister, and her husband, are killed in a car accident. However, with Christmas approaching, and most options involving separating the boys, Michael’s stay is extended, pushing closer to a key work meeting which could lead to a big deal just before Christmas.

The outline is familiar and there’s no denying the convention of the narrative arc here, but there’s a warmth to the film which brings about a likable feeling towards it. Stiller, in his first leading role since 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories, or even Zoolander 2, and has spent the last few years focusing on AppleTV+ series Severance, brings about a good deal of this warmth of a gentle performance that knows that most of the film’s laughs are intended for the young boys at the core of the narrative.

And indeed they manage to bring about a handful of chuckles here and there, bringing about a sense of chaos to some of their actions – wanting to jump their uncle’s bright-yellow Porsche over the trampoline sat outside their home – without ever feeling like off-the-wall problem children, even if the opening scene does involve them breaking into a fairground to hijack one of the rides. Yes, they’re given quirks and are shown to be pushed away by most other kids, although one strand does involve Michael helping eldest Justice (Homer) to talk to a girl he likes, and while it’s because they stand out and seem different they don’t feel like complete terrors from start to just-before-finish as a number of films tend to present in this vein. They’re more playing around with each other as they would on the freedom of the farm, and having some slightly, in the eyes of townsfolk, anarchic fun in the process.

Through this there’s a good few laughs scattered throughout, especially as the relationship between uncle and nephews begins to grow. To some extent the film recognises its familiar arc and perhaps leans into that to make for an easier watch – a more relaxed film overall as you can tell where things will go from the first few minutes, especially after the first interaction with Linda Cardellini’s foster worker Gretchen explaining the system to Michael shortly after he first arrives. From there there’s a steady pace to the film as a whole and it passes by with an engaging nature which holds up as key to just why it works as well as it does. Keeping that warmth in the performances, particularly Stiller’s welcome leading turn, and the overall tone this is a film that could so easily feel bland and stale but manages to keep its head above water perhaps by finding the right balance and perspective with the central relationship.

While there’s a familiarity to Nutcrackers’ narrative it manages to rise above that with its central warmth and the chuckles it manages to scatter throughout. An overall likable festive flick that could so easily have felt tired.