Review for Nutcracker: The Motion Picture

The Nutcracker is one of the world's best loved ballet and certainly one of the most memorable. Most remember it due to the wonderful Tchaikovsky music, some from the feeling of Christmas it all brings, but many may not be aware of the 1986 adaptation of the ballet to the big screen by Director Carroll Ballard. This is a mixbag of great and not-so-great points, but I will start by saying if you are a fan of the show in any way, you may want to give this a look.

On Christmas Eve, Clara receives a toy soldier nutcracker as a gift and instantly falls in love it. That night when everyone goes to sleep she goes to look at her present, but at the stroke of midnight gets whisked away to an enchanted land. Here she encounters all manner of creatures and beings and also her Nutcracker as a real live soldier who she falls deeply in love with. But can their love last as long as the night?

As I said at the beginning, this is not an amazing film and in fact I have seen much better versions of the ballet just as a static two or three camera shoot from the likes of the BBC or the Royal Ballet School. There is definitely a feeling that the Director did not want to just shoot a live performance of the ballet and wanted it to feel like a film. However, the use of certain film techniques like close-ups is very distracting at times as is the use of a narrator.

However, this film looks amazing in terms of costume, sets, you can tell that the imaginative Maurice Sendak who created Where the Wild Things Are had his hands all over this. I found myself thinking, if this was just a simple staging of the ballet all of this could shine, but for some reason it is blink and you will miss it. I found myself being more distracted by everything that was on the stage and not focused on the ballet dancers, who really should have had my whole attention.

The use of Tchaikovsky's music is fabulous and I have no issues on this part. I have always loved this ballet for its music and have seen stagings on the ballet simply so I could listen to it, rather than enjoy the ballet itself. I found the use perfect and there are no complaints about whether it was cut down (which I believe it was) as it worked great.

Nutcracker: The Motion Picture feels to me like a wonderful experiment that failed. The term 'less is more' comes to mind and if Director Carroll Ballard had kept some of the tricks he had learnt while associating with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas on the back-burner, this may have been an interesting and perfect film. Instead, it is a rather lacklustre production of the ballet and this is a shame as it could and should have been something special.