Icy Intergenerational Escapade - An Arthur Christmas Review
Christmas is the jolliest time of the year for many precisely due to the ability to come together and support one another through the darkest and harshest nights of the year. But those warm feelings are often attached to particular traditions which are prone to change. Change may be natural, but it is also an existential nightmare, which is especially prevalent now, due to the constant innovations which define the modern era. Holidays like Christmas are stable constants that give people a sense of normality. It is a day which comes around every year as a reminder that what you know about the world is not wrong. That validation for how people live their lives and how it can feel to have their values trampled over is a core theme in today's film, Arthur Christmas.
Arthur Christmas is as you likely guessed a Christmas movie about the story of Santa and his family. Except in this story, Santa is not a single person but a title that is passed on from generation to generation. The star of the movie is Arthur the clumsy but well-meaning second son of the current Santa Claus. Arthur's clumsy nature has naturally lead to a job which is meant to keep him out of trouble in the mail room whereas the next in line for the title of Santa is his competent and calculating older brother Steve. A man whose competence is so unquestionable that he has completely revamped the way presents are delivered while commanding most of the
Santa operation from his control room.
The movie kicks off with the current
Santa's supposed final delivery where we
get an exciting and creative scene
where a team of special ops,
military elves covertly sneak
into homes to deliver gifts at
a breakneck pace. This scene
also gives us a peek at the
changes Steve has made to
more effectively meet the
demands of the
ever-changing and
expanding population.
The delivery ends with a
few hitches along the way but
ends with Santa's victorious
return home. That is until
an elf notices that a
child didn't get
their gift. When
Steve finds out
he dismisses the
issue as a minor error
treating the child like
another statistic.
Arthur is hurt by the
news and is convinced
by his grandfather to
help him deliver that
last present.
From the above summary, it probably sounds like Steve is the villain of the movie. He puts the safety of his ship over the happiness of a child and literally treats children like numbers on a spreadsheet while calling them by an ID number over their actual names. But he's not, in fact, there isn't a villain in this movie. Steve, Santa, Arthur's grandfather (Grand-Santa), and even Arthur himself are just flawed people who feel underappreciated or fear the world is leaving them behind, which forms the main conflict in the film, a battle of ideologies over who is performing this tradition correctly.
Steve is actually a reasonably sympathetic figure who should have inherited his father's title a long time ago. His father is really only Santa in name only at this point, so much so that he has been reduced to delivering one present a city while the elves and Steve do all the work preparing all year round. But Santa stubbornly holds on to the title and blames Steve for anything that goes wrong. It's hard not to pity Steve as he does all the work, while his father gets all the recognition.
The current Santa, on the other hand, is just an older man who's struggling to let go of a job he loves. He dedicated his entire life to the role. He is unable to accept that his glory days are behind him and in constant fear that all he has done in life will be forgotten without the safety of his title. Santa is continuously out of his depth whenever he tries to take action by himself and lashes out at Steve, who does his job better than he does.
Steve's introduction of technology into the Santa operation also puts him at odds with his grandfather, who is deeply invested in Christmas traditions. Grand-Santa wants to show off the value of his way of being Santa back when they used to use the traditional sleigh and reindeer. Ultimately the problem isn't how they deliver presents or how good they are at doing it, but why they deliver gifts in the first place. It's a surprisingly multifaceted, relatable, and heartwarming interpretation of Santa and the ease we as humans lose sight of the meaning behind tradition.
Enter Arthur, who gets caught up in this intergenerational struggle over a title when all he wants to do is make sure a kid doesn't feel left out. Arthur doesn't care how the gift gets there and pushes himself to overcome his timid nature to deliver the gift himself. But even Arthur is not infallible as his adventure puts him through a crisis of faith that causes him to be disillusioned with Santa and everyone who's worn that title. But the way he ends up responding to that crisis is incredibly heartwarming and rekindles his determination to the point that it forces the rest of his family to reconsider their failings and what it means to be Santa. Ultimately Arthur Christmas spins a compelling tale of flawed humans who reignite their love of the holiday in a compelling, creative, action-packed package, which should go on everyone's yearly rotations come December.