Clara's Nutcracker (2022 film)

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Clara's Nutcracker is a 2022 Canadian-American animated musical fantasy film directed by Paul Schibli and produced by Kevin Gillis, with a screenplay by Raymond Boucher and Patricia Watson. It was produced by Chronofilms with animation by Walt Disney Animation Studios. The story is based off of the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman and also influenced by Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky's ballet, from which the film's instrumental score is used.

The movie is a remake of Lacewood Productions' 1990 film The Nutcracker Prince, from which the production staff returned. The story centers around a young girl, Clara, who receives a Nutcracker doll from her godfather Drosselmeyer. The gift leads her into a world of adventure, magic and wonder as she determines the fate of the Nutcracker, prince of the dolls: a young man named Hans who was cursed into a nutcracker by the wicked Mouse Queen. Together with Hans and her family's dolls, she must protect the land of the dolls from the Mouse King, son of the deceased mouse queen whom Hans must slay to break the curse, and his army. Unlike the original movie, the story is expanded with more action in the Land of the Dolls and a greater development of the romance between Clara and Hans.

Clara's Nutcracker released worldwide on December 18, 2022, on the 130th anniversary of the ballet's original premiere. The movie received enormous acclaim from critics, with praise directed towards the stunning return of 2D animation, the brilliant adaptations of Tchaikovsky's music, the comedic yet emotional writing, and its characters. Some critics noticed that the film's style of writing was intentionally similar to the Disney Renaissance films, and that the story "was both faithful to Hoffman's original story and refreshing...the best animated adaptation of a beloved Christmas tradition".

Plot
The main story is based off of Lacewood Productions' "The Nutcracker Prince" adaptation of the story, but the plot is expanded upon significantly and the order of events are slightly different.

In 1850's Nuremberg, Germany, Clara and her little brother Fritz celebrate Christmas Eve with their family. During the party, their mysterious godfather "Uncle" Christian Drosselmeyer arrives to delight the guests with wonderful gifts, including a mechanical toy castle and a Nutcracker doll for Clara. Fritz becomes jealous of the Nutcracker's skills and breaks it while playing with his toy soldiers. Clara is saddened, but Drosselmeyer promises to fix the Nutcracker and tells her a story of how the Nutcracker came to be the Prince of the Dolls.

Long ago, in a faraway kingdom lived a king and queen with their fair and beautiful daughter Princess Pirlipat. One day, she was cursed by the Mouse Queen into an aging elderly woman as revenge on the family for reasons currently unknown. After the cure for the spell, the fabled Crackatook nut, was discovered, the King invited noblemen all over the kingdom to crack the hard nut. All of them failed except for Hans, nephew of the King's advisor, who succeeded in cracking the nut and curing the Princess. However, he was cursed to become a Nutcracker as payback by the Mouse Queen, who met a quick demise soon after the transformation. Her son became the Mouse King, promising to get revenge on the Nutcracker for humiliating him.

Clara is disappointed by the tale's sad ending but feels empathy for Hans, and Drosselmeyer mentions the spell will be broken if he defeats the Mouse King and wins the hand of a fair maiden. That night, she wanders into the sitting room to tend to her beloved Nutcracker, dancing with him and introducing him to her dolls Trudy and Marie, and Pantaloon, an old soldier in Fritz's toy army. The Mouse King and his army suddenly appear from the shadows to find the Nutcracker, and the room is enchanted by Drosselmeyer, who watches from the grandfather clock. All the toys and dolls come to life and attempt to drive off the mice, but to no avail. The Nutcracker, having no memories following his transformation, is captured and Clara throws her slipper at the Mouse King to save him. Immediately after, she trips on a cannonball and crashes into the grandfather clock, fainting just as the Nutcracker recovers.

Clara awakes in a magical castle, being tended to by Pantaloon, her dolls, and Nutcracker, who she sees are now life-sized. They meet the Sugar Queen and Clara learns she is in the Land of the Dolls, of which Nutcracker is the prince, and of the plight between them and the Mouse King. The latter divided many people living in the kingdom and is plotting to take it over in a few days. The Sugar Queen says everyone in the kingdom will need to unite and band together to defeat the Mouse King. Before the toys can plan a counterattack, Drosselmeyer appears and warns Clara and Nutcracker not to rush headfirst into danger, suggesting that they take in the wonders of the kingdom, to which they agree. Clara watches a short entertaining ballet while Nutcracker and the other dolls plan how to retaliate towards the mouse army. After the group meets Francis, a young soldier lieutenant bearing resemblance to Fritz, the sky goes dark as their time in the kingdom runs out. The dolls turn inanimate again, and Clara falls asleep.

The next morning, she wakes up in her own bed and tries to tell her mother about the battle last night, but she is told to rest for the day. Drosselmeyer visits with the repaired Nutcracker, only giving vague hints about the battle and the magical kingdom. When Clara wonders if the Mouse King is real and will come back for the Nutcracker, the magician reveals that the Mouse Queen hated mouse traps, due to an incident involving the King's birthday cake at his party. After he ordered his inventing advisor to capture the mice, only the Mouse Queen and her son (the future Mouse King) avoided the traps, and the monarch plotted to get revenge on the king and queen by cursing Princess Pirlipat. After the story is told, Drosselmeyer leaves Clara to heal as Fritz comes to give her chocolates, which she puts in her bedside drawer. Later she eavesdrops on a conversation between Drosselmeyer and her parents, the latter of whom express concern over their daughter's "fairy tales" and consider finding a doctor to regulate her imagination. She passes it off and continues to rest, determined not to lose what matters most to her.

During the night, the Mouse King returns, vehement about Clara's interference from before. Before he can go after the Nutcracker again, Clara tricks him into eating her chocolates and traps him inside her drawer, and flees the bedroom to retrieve the inanimate Nutcracker, but the Mouse King escapes and threatens to harm her kitten Pavlova if she doesn't hand over Nutcracker. Drosselmeyer reappears and the toys awaken once more. Nutcracker reassures Clara not to worry and engages the Mouse King in a fearsome fight that leads to a chase up the Christmas tree. The latter is apparently defeated when he falls off the tree after a blow to the head, and the toys celebrate the prince's victory. When everyone sees that Pantaloon has been injured during the duel, they have to return to the Land of the Dolls so he can recover. Clara is shrunken down to doll size thanks to Drosselmeyer's magic, and the magician gives her a special key that will allow her to re-enter the realm at any time. As the group enters the toy castle, an awakened Fritz spots Pavlova by the Mouse King, who regains consciousness and is carried away by his troops, vowing to take control of the doll kingdom in two days.

Clara, Nutcracker, and the dolls return to the kingdom on flying swans, passing forests of Christmas trees and arriving at the Sugar Queen's Gingerbread Castle once more. As Pantaloon heals, the group is told they must gain assistance from the Winter Wizard, who is said to have great powers but a kind heart. They along with Francis commence their adventure and march outside the castle, drawing the attention of many denizens to help them out. The joined forces split up to rally more allies and the heroes travel to the Forest of Snowflakes by boat.

As the group travels through Winter Wizard's domain, Rudi, an elite spy in the Mouse King's army secretly tries to impede their progress. They eventually find the wizard, but he is at first reluctant and prefers to be left alone, until the spy mouse attacks him and the others, who prove that the Sugar Queen requested him for help. All of them escape the forest and try to row back to the castle. When the mouse spy eventually corners them with other mice troops, Pantaloon saves them in the nick of time, forcing the mice to retreat. The heroes return to Gingerbread Castle and the kingdom celebrates, and Clara's bond with Nutcracker grows stronger due to his willingness to help others. Seeing this, the Sugar Queen and her servants plan to have the two fall in love and be forever wed the next day, that way the kingdom will be free from harm. Before Francis can tell Clara his identity, the kingdom blacks out once more and she returns to the real world again.

On the last day before the fated takeover, Clara's growing romance with the inanimate Nutcracker becomes apparent to her family, to the point she wonders if Hans, the Nutcracker's true identity, is really Drosselmeyer's nephew after the latter remarks he reminds him of such family member. As her imagination persists, her parents insist that she needs to focus on her future in the real world and restrict her interactions with the Nutcracker. Drosselmeyer also reveals that he will be bringing the toy castle back with him the next day, for a reason he cannot disclose. Finding no one to convince that her "dreams" are real, Clara ponders if she really must forget about her childhood fantasies and goals to break Hans' curse. Nevertheless, Fritz is the only one to somehow believe her "dreams", even if by a little bit.

Later that night, Clara sneaks into the sitting room and uses Drosselmeyer's special key to re-enter the Land of the Dolls via the lock on the toy castle's door. She finds all of her doll friends and the Nutcracker hard at work, preparing for their stand against the mouse army, due to Drosselmeyer's magic allowing the toys to subconsciously interact with the kingdom in their state of lifelessness. Francis gets better at commanding the kingdom's soldiers, to the pleasure of the experienced Pantaloon. Following their work, they have a festive in which Clara dances with Nutcracker and the other dolls, to commence the lovers' eventual wedding. After congratulating them on their dance, Sugar Queen tells Clara in private that Winter Wizard was once king of the doll kingdom, until it was divided and their princess disappeared. Clara realizes the truth of the Land of the Dolls and why Hans was chosen to be its Prince. Later, Drosselmeyer comes to tell Clara that she must not stay in the kingdom overnight. His goddaughter, not convinced, insists she can help the dolls and presses him on whether Princess Pirlipat's kingdom was enchanted out of guilt for Hans being cursed. Despite her integrity, Drosselmeyer refuses to confess and, adamant about keeping her safe, casts a mysterious mind spell on her.

Immediately afterwards, Clara shares a romantic dance with Nutcracker, who asks her to stay with him and be his princess in the Land of the Dolls. Clara is about to embrace her fantasies and beloved companion, but due to Drosselmeyer's mind spell taking hold, she is conflicted about abandoning her family whom she loves and is unable to give a true answer. She makes a statement about growing up in in the real world, to the shock of everyone in the ballroom, and the dolls prematurely turn lifeless due to Clara's imagination waning. She tries to resist the mind control, expressing her discovery of the kingdom's secret and questioning why Drosselmeyer would rebuild the people's identities, but she senses that her time in the land is running out and hallucinates the Mouse King. Stricken with fright, she tries to ward him off with sweets, only for Drosselmeyer's illusion fading to reveal it was the Winter Wizard she hit instead. Clara suffers a nervous breakdown and after seeing place Fritz in place of Francis, she runs out onto the harbor as the kingdom turns foggy under a nighttime sky. As the swans take her away, she calls out to Nutcracker, who slowly turns back into a regular doll with the rest of the people.

When Clara wakes up the next morning, she appears to have amnesia, having seemingly forgotten the Land of the Dolls, Nutcracker's true self and the Mouse King and passing them off as mere dreams. But she does remember Marie, Trudy and Pantaloon as simple dolls, and notices the toy castle is missing from its table. A therapist (the same one Clara's parents called for the previous day), Mr. Brains, comes and takes Clara and her family to his office to "help" her. When the broken girl tells him the things she "dreamed" about but cannot tell if they were real, Mr. Brains says it will not be long until he wipes the 'dreams' from her memory completely. This ends up being a big mistake, for as soon as he utters mention of "a special someone" (Hans the Nutcracker), Clara's memory of her adventure becomes clear again. Fritz is suspicious of the doctor after seing Rudi the rat spy with him and knocks him out with his toy cannon. He reveals that he was Francis' true identity (as Drosselmeyer linked his war dreams with the kingdom), and Mr. Brains turns back into the Mouse King, who laments on his ruined plan to get Clara out of the picture before escaping. Determined to save everyone, the two children run back home to see the faux-therapist's goons about to send Drosselmeyer to an insane asylum, and they free their godfather. Clara puts the toy castle back into the sitting room, and she and Fritz are whisked back into the Land of the Dolls, which slowly returns to life.

The Nutcracker and the dolls awake from their slumber to see Fritz and Clara in the distance rushing to Gingerbread Castle, but far ahead of them are the Mouse King and his entire army of rats and also flies, who attack the castle from the air. The dolls try to bar the army from entering and laying waste to the castle, but they find themselves outnumbered and run to safety while the two children make their way through a secret passage to the inside of the castle. The dolls, Sugar Queen and Nutcracker are cornered by the Mouse King, but Fritz and Clara arrive in the nick of time. The girl throws her slipper at Rudi, knocking him out and preventing Mouse King from attacking the dolls in a team. The king of mice engages Clara and Nutcracker in a decisive final battle, more furious than ever before, while the dolls fight off the mice troops.

The duel is a grueling one, with the Mouse King at one point growing to gigantic size and destroying the castle halls to try and kill the two lovers. Eventually the Nutcracker stabs him in the chest, fatally wounding him and reverting him back to normal size. As he and Clara try to regroup with the dolls, the Mouse King rises from the floor and blocks their way. Mentally unstable due to his agony, he makes one last attempt on their lives. The two are backed up against the castle's balcony, with the king preparing to strike the Nutcracker and "take [him] down with [him]". Clara throws herself in front of the attack and shares the Nutcracker's pain as he is injured. The three of them fall from the damaged balcony and into the rivers below the kingdom, but the two heroes are caught just in time by the dolls, who ride the swans to the castle's bridge after saving them.

At first everyone is glad the battle is over, but then Clara grieves for the Nutcracker and begs him to stay with her. As his strength to live slowly fades, she tearfully says that no matter if he is human or a Nutcracker doll, he will always be Hans to her. After Clara declares her love, Drosselmeyer uses his magic to revive Hans, and the Mouse Queen's spell upon him is broken as he turns back to human form, to everyone's surprise and awe. At that moment, the children are transported back home by their godfather and reunite with their family. Drosselmeyer reappears and tells Clara he would like to introduce someone to her. When Clara's eyes are opened, she sees a boy holding a clock fashioned about the Gingerbread Castle. He is introduced as Drosselmeyer's nephew Hans, whom Clara recognizes as her beloved Nutcracker as a human.

The family discovers a door by the table where the toy castle once was, which opens to reveal the old kingdom of Princess Pirlipat, where the people, the King and Queen are rejoicing that their former memories are restored. Drosselmeyer reveals he separated the people from their doll personas, so that both places can exist together. Clara's doll Marie is revealed to be Princess Pirlipat, but she chooses to remain a doll. Hans asks Clara to marry him and live in the Land of the Dolls forever, and this time, she accepts with her family's blessing. The movie ends with the married lovers and all the dolls dancing in the Gingerbread Castle, living happily ever after.

Cast
TBA as Clara.

Jared S. Gilmore as Hans the Nutcracker Prince.

Patric Zimmerman as Drosselmeyer.

TBA as the Mouse King.

John Oliver as Pantaloon.

TBA as Trudy.

TBA as Marie.

TBA as Fritz/Francis.

TBA as Dr. Carl Stahlbaum.

TBA as Mrs. Ingrid Stahlbaum and the Sugar Queen.

TBA as Louise and Mrs. Ginger.

TBA as Eric.

TBA as the Winter Wizard.

TBA as Rudi.

Archival recordings of Phyllis Diller as the Mouse Queen from the 1990 original version.

Differences from The Nutcracker Prince (1990)
There are a considerable amount of differences from the original film The Nutcracker Prince, most coming in already-existing scenes:
 * The story takes place over a four-day circle (starting with Christmas Eve at the family house and ending three days later), adding more urgency and giving the Land of the Dolls more significance to the story.
 * The sequences explaining the Nutcracker's backstory were condensed significantly to allow for the new scenes in the doll kingdom, and are drawn in a simpler sepia storybook style.
 * On a story note, Drosselmeyer only tells Clara what led to Hans' curse at the start, and explains the reasoning behind Mouse Queen's spell on Princess Pirlipat later. In the original 1990 version, the entire backstory of events leading to the curse of Hans is explained with an entire separate segment dedicated to the background.
 * Fritz is more involved in the story, with his war dreams being drawn into the world of dolls by Drosselmeyer's enchantment, thus creating his doll alter-ego Francis.


 * The opening scene where Clara and Fritz are running through the Nuremberg town to see Drosselmeyer is extended to accommodate the new song, "Lovely Christmas Eve".
 * After Drosselmeyer turns off the mechanical toy castle at the Stahlbaums' Christmas party, the music played by the concert band (before Clara receives the Nutcracker doll) is different, being a new melody rather than an arrangement of Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" as in the 1990 film.
 * The end of the first battle between the toys and mice is slightly different in that Nutcracker is actually seized by the Mouse King to be taken away and executed, rather than immediately being assaulted by the rat, before Clara intervenes. Also, new animation has been created for when Nutcracker and the dolls check on her after she crashes into the grandfather clock.
 * The events of the scene where Clara wakes up from her injury (and her first visit to the doll kingdom) are in a slightly different order. In the 1990 version, Fritz sees Clara first to give her chocolates, then Drosselmeyer and Clara's mother come in to visit her. In the remake, Drosselmeyer and Mrs. Stahlbaum wake up Clara first, and the former privately tells her the second part of Hans and Princess Pirlipat's history (the incident at the King's birthday party) before Fritz comes in afterwards to give her chocolates. The end of the scene is extended to demonstrate the exclusive plot element of the Stahlbaums considering calling for a therapist to control Clara's fantasies.
 * Following the duel between Nutcracker and the Mouse King, Clara is the one to ask Marie how to get to the Land of the Dolls rather than Hans in the original, because the protagonists have been to the kingdom before the fight.
 * The end result of the first duel is different. Rather than stabbing the Mouse King in the chest, Nutcracker deals a blow to the rat's head due to not being close enough to hit the chest. This means that the Mouse King lives to prepare for his conquest of the doll kingdom two days from there, and also allows Fritz to have more scenes that foreshadow his destiny to help the magical world.
 * When Nutcracker, Clara and the dolls leave for the doll kingdom on flying swans, new animation is given to extend their realization of leaving Marie behind, and the "Final Waltz" instrumental is replaced with "Waltz of the Flowers". Their change of clothes also does not occur when they fly out of the waterfall, instead their current clothes magically dry out. Also, Pantaloon is still weakened, despite his wind-up screw being magically repaired.
 * Clara and Hans' complements to each other's appearance before their dance is pushed forward to just before said scene in the remake.
 * Fritz's dialogue about Pavlova seeing a big mouse (the Mouse King) is pushed back from after the Mouse King's final demise to after the protagonists return from the Forest of Snowflakes with the Winter Wizard.
 * The scene where Clara faces an internal struggle between wanting to stay with her family and being with the dolls is lengthened and altered. New dialogue is added in which Clara expresses disgust over Drosselmeyer keeping a secret of the kingdom from her, before she rushes out of the castle and sees the Mouse King. By extension, part of the "Adagio" instrumental (which was adapted into the earlier vocal song "A Love So Real") is lengthened as well.
 * The latter half of the above scene differs between the two versions:
 * In the 1990 film, the Mouse King (who in the original was killed during the earlier duel) is really there, barely managing to live as he threatens Clara's life. Nutcracker tries to save her, but ends up turning back into a lifeless doll. Clara is backed up against the balcony and the Mouse King, attempting to strike her down, ends up plummeting into the water below Gingerbread Castle. Clara recovers and mist fills the empty palace as she calls out for the Nutcracker.
 * The animation for when the deranged Mouse King goes after Clara is instead used for the final battle (after Hans stabs him in the chest), but new lines have been added.
 * In the 2022 remake, the Mouse King is merely a hallucination in Clara's mind created by Drosselmeyer to urge her to leave the doll realm immediately. After she throws food at him, she hears Mouse King's voice slowly turn into Winter Wizard's as the illusion fades. She goes into a state of delirium and hallucinates Fritz where Francis is, foreshadowing the reveal later on, and runs onto the misty harbor before fainting. She quickly recovers when the swans take her away and sees Nutcracker and the other dolls outside the palace, and calls out to them before the kingdom loses its magic.
 * In the finale, the restored Hans is introduced to Clara not at Drosselmeyer's workshop, but at the Stahlbaum house. The music during this scene is an arrangement of "Final Waltz", rather than a repeat of the "Adagio" in the original version, to set up the finale version of "Faraway Place".

Transcript
Clara's Nutcracker (2022 film)/Transcript

Music
Clara's Nutcracker uses Tchaikovsky's well-renowned score for the Nutcracker ballet as the basis for the movie's soundtrack, along with original melodies by Alan Menken and Victor Davies (some of which are reused from the original version of The Nutcracker Prince). While "Clara's Song (Save This Dance)" remains intact from the original movie, new vocal songs are added to give the soundtrack a Disney-esque style, with lyrics by co-director/writer Raymond Boucher. The soundtrack also uses various instrumental leitmotifs from the ballet, similarly to Disney's 1959 film Sleeping Beauty, and the original version of The Nutcracker Prince. For example, the "Dance of the Reed Flutes" is used as a theme for the doll kingdom, and Fritz/Francis uses the famous "March" theme. In this version, Drosselmeyer uses a segment of the "Grandfather's Dance" scene music, more specifically when Clara and the girls cuddle their dolls in the ballet (also used in the beginning of "Departure of the Guests ~ Night"). Some instrumentals used in the original film are replaced by others in order to have more diversity.

Reception
TBD.

Trivia

 * Although this is the first movie released by Chronofilms, this is actually the company's second film in development. Their first developed film was Leap 2! The Top of the World (Ballerina 2: New Dreams in other territories), which came out one and a half year after Clara's Nutcracker.
 * The flies that are part of Mouse King's army in the final battle is a reference to the Fly-Admiral, a mentioned character in E.T.A. Hoffman's original The Nutcracker and the Mouse King story.
 * The co-producer of the film, Raymond Boucher, has stated that the film takes the best elements of several film adaptations of The Nutcracker: Clara's act of self-sacrifice for the Nutcracker from the end of the 1979 stop-motion film Nutcracker Fantasy, the sense of adventure from Barbie in the Nutcracker, the drama of the climax from Disney's The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, the faithfulness of The Nutcracker Prince to Hoffman's original story, and the decision to use vocal songs is inspired by 2010's The Nutcracker in 3D.