Noelle

Release Date: November 12, 2019

Watch Date: December 11 – December 12, 2023

“Kris Kringle’s daughter is full of Christmas spirit and holiday fun, but wishes she could do something ‘important’ like her beloved brother Nick, who will take over from their father this Christmas. Nick is training to be Santa, but is failing miserably. He crashes the sleigh. He can’t tell naughty from nice. He doesn’t understand any languages other than his own. The things that are supposed to come naturally to Santa, unfortunately don’t come to Nick at all. When Nick is about to crumble like a gingerbread cookie from all the pressure, Noelle suggests he take a break and get away to clear his head…but then he doesn’t return. His sudden disappearance leads to chaos in the North Pole, so Mrs. Kringle must step up to rein in the hi-tech replacement Santa, Cousin Gabe. Meanwhile, Noelle and Elf Polly, the family’s acerbic but good-hearted nanny, steal the sleigh and the reindeer to go in search of her brother to bring him back in time to save Christmas. It is a search-and-recover mission, during which Noelle begins to understand the true meaning of Christmas and learns that the Kringle name isn’t the only thing she shares with her father.”

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    This is a cute movie.

    I mean, there’s not a lot to say. It’s not a movie that’s taking a lot of risks. We’ve all seen the fish out of water movie, specifically someone coming from the North Pole to ‘the real world’ and not understanding how everything isn’t Christmas themed all the time – which isn’t bad, but it’s weird that it’s happened at least twice. We’ve also all seen the ‘new Santa doesn’t know what he’s doing’ movie. And this one hits that trope twice.

    But this movie is sweet, it’s lighthearted. It’s not trying to break any major ground, it’s just trying to be a Christmas movie you might put on once a year to make you smile. And it does that job well. There’s no over the top romance, a trope I completely expected to be hit that was dodged entirely. They didn’t go with the stereotypical big city, choosing instead Phoenix, Arizona, which is maybe a big city but compared to the typical Los Angeles or New York locations of Christmas movies – not really. It’s different enough to feel like it’s own thing, while still hitting all the major Christmas movie things we’d expect.

    There’s a misunderstanding of how products should be used, and how capitalism works. There’s a desire for everyone to be grouped into naughty or nice categories. There’s goofy reindeer. There’s elves that look like humans and can hide their elf nature with a headband. One elf is wisecracking and acidic in personality. There’s a man who doesn’t believe in all this Santa stuff – which if Santa exists, and this will always bother me, how do you not believe in Santa as an adult…where do you think the presents from Santa come from? Does Santa modify memories?

    The more I write this the more I have to say this movie is basically “What if ‘Elf’ and ‘The Santa Clause’ had a baby, but that baby was a girl because woman power?” It’s not a bad thing. It’s just…it wasn’t needed.

    But it was still cute. Bob and I still got invested. We still smiled. Snowcone is probably my new favorite reindeer of all time. Possibly my new favorite Christmas character of all time. Possibly. You’re not going to be disappointed if you watch this movie, you’re not going to feel like you wasted time, and you’re definitely going to walk away full of Christmas cheer. You could just watch ‘Elf’ and ‘The Santa Clause’ in quick succession and probably walk away feeling a little bit more fulfilled?

    But it is a cute movie.