CHIFF Review: The Polar Bear Prince is a shaky fairy tale that's trying its darndest
You can feel the Disney classics that inspired it while watching The Polar Bear Prince. Here is a musical fairy tale with an evil queen, musical numbers, and a healthy dose of darkness. The bear looks like he was pulled straight out of Brother Bear . But this Norwegian fairy tale, which opened in its home country in 2024, but is still doing the festival rounds now (including this year's CHIFF), doesn't stack up to the works that paved the way for it. It ends up being a rickety but likable musical, one whose missteps I often foudn oddly endearing. The film's storybook opening tells us about a princess, Eira, who lost her parents while still young. The people surrounding her tried to soothe her spirit with an endless parade of gifts, leading her to become demanding, greedy, and wicked. Soon, the darkness consumed her. The land became barren, her subjects scared. And then along came a charming prince, Valemon, who was everything Eira was not: kind, curious, gentle. Eira, used...
