Klaus (2019)

Wow, a brand new Christmas movie in the IMDb top 250. Has that ever happened before? And how long can we expect it to stay up there? There seemed no better choice for me to watch on Christmas itself.

The setting appears to be 19th-century Scandinavia, in an alternate timeline where the Santa Claus legend hasn't started yet. Jesper (Jason Schwartzman) is in a postal academy out of sheer nepotism and wants to flunk out and return to a spoiled life without obligation, but his father will not oblige him so easily. Instead, he is assigned to the far-northern, remote island town of Smeerensburg, where he must deliver 6,000 letters in one year or be disowned. The unfriendly citizens are caught up in a clan feud and have no desire to write to anyone. Jesper is about to give up when he accidentally delivers a kiddie drawing to hermit Klaus (J.K. Simmons), who has made many unused toys and decides to press Jesper into delivering one to that kid. Jesper spreads word among the children that letters to Klaus result in nighttime toy deliveries, and the legend begins to take shape.

If you're scratching your head about the "accidentally" part, know that this starts as a goofy comedy before turning to heartwarming holiday schmaltz. Many details of the legend prove untrue: Jesper goes down the chimneys instead of Klaus (you'd think a lazy, decadent aristocrat wouldn't be rail thin), the reindeer don't really fly, and Klaus has no superhuman knowledge of who's naughty or nice. Until the very ending, the only sign of magic or miracles is the occasional convenient wind.

Jesper, Klaus, and the good kids aren't the only people around Smeerensburg not consumed by the feud. Ferryman Mogens (Norm Macdonald) often drops by in snide amusement to question Jesper's wisdom in not leaving yet. (His use of the term "snail mail" is about the only blatant anachronism.) And Alva (Rashida Jones), who trained as a schoolteacher but gets no support that way, hopes that fish peddling will make her enough money to move out. Despite having little initial patience for non-customer Jesper, it's obvious from the fact that she's the first decent-looking woman we see that she'll fall for him in the end, without much romantic buildup.

I find it a little odd the gift giving first occurs every night. Wouldn't the kids get sorely disappointed once Klaus switched to an annual affair? Also, at no point does anyone append "Santa" to his name. And forget about saint or other religious talk.

Perhaps the hardest things for me to accept in all this are the villains, and not primarily for their over-the-top caricature appearances and idiocy. While most Smeerensburg adults gradually follow the lead of their children and turn neighborly, the clan leaders (Will Sasso and Joan Cusack) and a handful of loyalists insist that the feud must go on, for no other reason than tradition going back apparently thousands of years, with neither side offering an explanation of how it began. I don't see how a town could be founded on internal conflict, and light-PG evidence suggests that their clashes can be fatal. Perhaps the only reason neither clan has annihilated the other yet is that the survivors wouldn't know what to do with themselves. The leaders do form a truce to take on the "threat" from Jesper and Klaus.

But enough about the negatives; the positives still outweigh them in my mind. For starters, I can tell that a lot of thought went into how the Santa Claus legend might have developed little by little. Even when it's not particularly funny, it stirs the mind.

Second, the humor has just enough of an edge to let grown-up viewers feel neither embarrassed to be watching nor too concerned about their kids watching. A lot has to do with near misses from deadly weapons, traps, and attack dogs. I wouldn't show it to my toddler nephew, but I think a five-year-old could handle it.

Third, it succeeds at capturing most intended emotional reactions besides laughter. Consider Jesper: He first comes across as just short of Emperor Kuzco from The Emperor's New Groove, so we don't feel too sorry for him when he finds Smeerensburg a nightmare (good thing the writers rejected the concept of a poor chimney sweep), but we get to see things his way, partly because he's still the most virtuous guy there. We can believe it when he shifts from a desperation to leave to a fondness for the place -- and for his improvised role in making it better with no direct personal reward.

The take on Klaus is also interesting. The huge, laconic, ax-wielding loner frightens Jesper with his entrance. Only in the third act do we learn why he's been far from jolly. Then he becomes about as relatable as Jesper.

Really, the explicit message that kindness is catchy, even when initiated out of secretly selfish desires, is itself pretty catchy. In a lesser holiday production, it would garner an eye roll from me, but after all the hopelessness of Smeerensburg, a big part of me accepted the idea that such dramatic changes could happen. I wanted to, and I wanted it to reinforce my own good practices in reality.

The other factor to appreciate is the crisp animation. I'm glad Sergio Pablos doesn't restrict himself to CG anymore, tho he did use volumetric lighting for an enhanced approximation of 3D. Oh, and you might like hearing a remarkable amount of dialog in unsubbed Sami by a cute little girl and her family.

Will Klaus become a seasonal classic? Maybe. It's no less deserving than a lot of oft-replayed oldies. I recommend it for when you're not in a great mood but plan to enter one.