Review: A silent elf steals the show in charming The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland

This year has brought with it some really wonderful holiday animation. I really enjoyed peppy threequel The Magic Reindeer: Saving Santa's Sleigh. David Lowery's gem of a stop-motion short An Almost Christmas Story is definitely finding its place in my regular holiday rotation going forward. Netflix has That Christmas dropping the week after next. And currently streaming on Hulu is the utterly charming The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland, which comes highly recommended.

Based on the children's book written by Carys Bexington and illustrated by Kate Hindley, The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland is very much what the title sounds like. Santa Claus (Gerard Butler in a wonderful turn) is prepping for his yearly journey around the world when a last-minute, well-worn letter gets delivered. It's from the Princess of Hearts, a Wonderland royal who wants Santa to bring her a Bandersnatch, a sort of dragon-dog creature that she thinks would make a thrilling pet. Santa's reindeer oppose the detour, noting Santa's history of mishaps and that Wonderland is quite out of the way. But Santa is Santa -- it's his duty to make every child's wish come true. So off to Wonderland they go.

The issue: Wonderland's tyrannical ruler, the Queen of Hearts (Emilia Clarke), hates Christmas. Any decoration, any gift, any bit of jolliment or holiday whimsy is cause for the classic punishment: an order for decapitation. (That sounds a bit more harsh than her bellowing "Off with their heads!" but it is what it is.) So begins a bit of a game of cat-and-mouse, but here it's queen-and-Claus. Santa wants to deliver the gift. The Queen of Hearts wants to stop him in his tracks. And the cast of familiar Wonderland characters want to defy the queen, help Santa, and maybe bring Christmas back to Wonderland.

It's a super simple and enjoyable story that moves along at an enjoyable clip. The characters always speak in rhyme, an appropriate ode to the film's storybook roots, and it's a lot of fun to listen to. Sometimes, that kind of endless rhyming gets a bit old, wears the ear out a bit. But here, the writing is so crisp and funny, and more importantly, the delivery feels very natural and well-timed, that the rhyming feels like a feature rather than a rule. I never tired of it, which is saying something, as even shorts that adhere to such a code can sometimes bug me a bit.

The animation is pulled straight from Hindley's illustrations, which is a very smart move, indeed. The characters are colorful and cute, with a lot of fun detail in their clothing and hair. I loved Santa's glasses, the reindeer's droll expressions, the curls in the Queen's hair. And the absolute star of the show is Boots, a stowaway elf who becomes a pretty remarkable force in Santa's party. Boots, like all of the elves, is silent, but the film gets so much milage out of his adorable face, simple physicality, and comedic timing. He's a star!

I loved the characterization of Santa here. It's easy to default to trope-y ideas of Santa: wise, warm, an expert at what he does. (Alternately, sometimes a movie goes too far in the opposite direction, like weight-lifting badass Santa in Red One...NO THANKS.) This movie's Santa has the warmth and heart you want from the big guy, but he's also a bit of a bumbling buffoon. The reindeer list the many mistakes he's made over the years; you get the feeling that they and the elves are the ones who really manage to pull of Christmas every year. But Santa also has a clarity of vision, a dedication to his mission. And he's a bit of a diva. With no Mrs. Claus in sight, and using a harness to help him fly through the air to get into his sleigh, I have no choice but to declare this version of Santa Claus as an iconic gay man. 

Which gels well with the movie's musical numbers, which aren't numerous, but are consistently fun. They help spice up a pretty straightforward narrative, flesh out some characters, and give the Bandersnatch a well-deserved spotlight. The whole voice cast does just as well with the songs as they do with the dialogue, and as someone who was a fan of Butler's Phantom, my heart was happy hearing him sing again.

If for no other reason, watch this movie to behold the glory and wisdom of Boots, the bravest and bestest elf there ever was. But there are so many other reasons to watch, you might as well check it out anyways.