Yeah so, I got Disney+
What’s with these Christmas movies coming out in November? Doesn’t it seem a few weeks too early? Last Christmas was released on 7th November in Australia, and Noelle is the inaugural release on Disney+, available from 19th November. Perhaps the film industry is working around Frozen II and Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker at this time, as they loom to take in big money and are both slated for the December holidays, and so Christmas comes to November this year.
Noelle is written and directed by Marc Lawrence and stars Anna Kendrick as Noelle. Noelle Kringle is Santa’s daughter and Noelle loves Christmas. When Santa dies, her brother Nick Kringle (Bill Hader) starts training to become the next Santa Claus. The only problem is that he stinks, and he hates it. Noelle suggests that Nick take a weekend break and come back fresh next week, but Nick loves his holiday so much that when the sleigh returns to the North Pole, he does not. Now, Noelle must travel to Phoenix, Arizona to find Nick and bring him back home before Christmas is ruined.
Noelle is almost a reincarnation of Elf, as a large chunk of the movie sees Noelle as a fish-out-water in Phoenix. Noelle is uber positive, whilst the residents of Phoenix are not. She meets a private detective, Jake (Kingsley Ben-Adir) who is too well put-together to be so bitter in my opinion, or so stereotyping in other movies would have me believe. Compared to Elf, this movie’s depiction of the outside world is very bleak. I seem to remember that everyone in the real world was still trying to make the most of Christmas in Elf, but their Christmas cheer was low; here civilians don’t even seem care about Christmas and aren’t kind to one another. Noelle makes me want to cross Phoenix of my list of travel destinations pretty damn quick.
There came a time during the middle of the movie when I realised I didn’t have a handle on how Noelle thought. Then Polly, the curmudgeonly endearing elf played by Shirley MacLaine, tries to suggest that it’s good Noelle is worrying about someone other than herself at Christmas for a change – huh? Noelle has never seen shown to be selfish or anything of the sort, up to this point. Noelle asks her father at the beginning of the film what her role will be at Christmas, and she is tasked with supporting Nick and keeping up the Christmas cheer; she does that. It’s not like she sends Nick away out of spite, or because he is annoying her; she genuinely thinks he needs a break because she’s looking out for him and thinks it will help his training in becoming Santa Claus. It’s on Nick that he didn’t come back, not Noelle. Noelle then tells Alex (Maceo Smedley), the private detective’s son, that he will be getting his wish at Christmas, which is to have his family together on Christmas Day. How she expects that to eventuate considering it involves the will of other people is unknown. Naturally, Jake is upset when he finds out what Noelle has said, but again, Noelle has never been shown to be selfishly thoughtless, and even when she first whispered to Alex, it seemed out of character. I think the movie decided it needed to create tension between Noelle and Jake, so they could have a traditional cinematic fallout before the climax, so they forced some in. Instead, Noelle could have just said to Alex that he deserves to get his Christmas wish on Christmas, and have the tension between Jake and Noelle come from her interfering in the family’s mess.
The third act sees Noelle take over as Santa Clause, delivering presents on Christmas Eve. Here, the movie even approaches this concept like it’s naughty. We’ve seen many alterations to the mythos of Santa Claus through Christmas movies; I see making Santa a woman as just an avenue that Christmas movies have yet explored. We have Ariana Grande charting with “God is a Woman”, I think we can handle the idea of Santa being a woman. Noelle could have embraced the concept, and Noelle could have faced traditionalist saying “Santa is not a woman” with frustration, saying “yeah well, she is now!’ The movie doesn’t even have to address their premise more than once or twice really; it could have just been like, “Santa is a woman; we’re doing it.” I just don’t think The Santa Clause with Tim Allen would have been more thrilling if the Santa Claus had been like “but I can’t be Santa, I’m regular man… I’m a regular man, this is ridiculous… I hope people accept a regular man as Santa.” I think that the movie is trying to appeal to girls by suggesting that even if you’re nervous to do something and you think people might judge you, that it’s still okay to go for it; fair enough but I just found it annoying. Even when Noelle gets home from her delivery run, she hopes that the village people at the North Pole have come to terms with her being Santa Claus, but they already accepted her – when she gave her speech about Christmas, they were all touched, crying in the courthouse, and then they let her be Santa.
There are couple of emotional scenes that work; like when Noelle is surprised to learn that she understands sign language and it’s cute to see the Santa suit eventually fit Noelle, as the suit “fits you as you fit it”. I was never bored in Noelle because I was intrigued to see how it ended. Noelle has got those Elf-vibes, but is desperately low on Christmas charm. Anna Kendrick is nowhere near as compelling as Will Pharrell in Elf, but I think the way her character is written is the majority of the problem, and not her. Many of the jokes don’t land, and this movie is often high on its own fabricated drama. I was surprised at how poor the CGI is too, considering Noelle is produced by Disney; perhaps the animators were knackered after working all-hours on The Lion King. Noelle continues Disney’s new tradition of making fun of classic Disney princesses that have come before – Noelle tries to beckon her pet albino reindeer by singing like Snow White, but it never works and she always ends up yelling. And I think it’s funny that every child wants an iPad, but the only character embracing technology is cousin Gabriel (Billy Eichner), and he almost ruined Christmas.
1.5
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