As Good As It Gets

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Santa is a mixture of various Pagan winter gods (Dionysus, Odin, etc.). The modern Santa we're familiar with came out of the works of Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and Clement C. Moore (who most notably described Santa as "a jolly old elf"). Santa, this ancient being, has only seemed natural in movie versions of Dickens's A Christmas Carol as The Ghost of Christmas Present, where he is very clearly the god Dionysus. Until now. Journey to the Christmas Star depicts Father Christmas (Santa) as a gnome-shaman who possesses sacred mystical knowledge - the Santa archetype that existed in the ancient world. Thus, there is nothing hokey/contrived or commercial about this movie.

I really, really enjoyed this movie. As another reviewer said, it does not hit you over the head with Christmas themes. There are no flying reindeer or Christmas gifts and there is no Baby Jesus. But it does touch on wonderful Christmas traditions, such as the mistletoe and the lighting of the Christmas tree, as well as giving some insight about what Father Christmas knows and how he knows it. If I had any complaint at all it was that the story moved a little too quickly--it would have been way too easy for me to watch another 20 minutes or so, so that some areas could have been expanded upon. The villains were a bit one-dimensional, but as they were not crucial to the plot, I forgave that. All in all, a very enjoyable movie and one that I would be happy to add to my DVD collection if at all possible.

I enjoyed this movie very much, but there was a lot less about Christmas than I would have expected. There's just a narrated storybook bit about one Christmas at the beginning, and then the whole film is focused on the search for the Christmas star, but it's not really tied into Christmas in any meaningful way. Still, if you don't look at so much as a Christmas story but more of a fairytale, then it's very satisfying. The dubbing was decent (although I would have preferred the Norwegian soundtrack with subtitles), and I'm so glad they used British dubbing voices, because the accents fit in so much better with the medieval European setting than American voices would have (I'm American myself, so this is not a manifestation of xenophobia, but I really hate when fairy tales which obviously take place in medieval Europe are acted or dubbed by American actors who use modern vocal expression without any attempt at authenticity. It can throw a whole movie for me). But, I digress. What I really loved about this movie were the breathtaking scenery, all the snow (yes, any decent Christmas movie has to have snow!), the scenes in the old Norwegian town, costumes, etc. The visual aesthetic was like a cross between the Golden Compass and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, but the story was much less sophisticated... as I said, more like a Grimm's fairytale. The villains were typical unidimensional villains. It would have been a better movie if their characters had been better rounded out. And, of course, if we were supposed to be surprised by who Sonia turned out to be, then it wasn't much of a surprise. Pretty predictable. Maybe it would take kids longer to figure it out, but I have my doubts. The animatronic bear was a bit lame, but that scene didn't last long, and the ride on the North Wind was well done as far as special effects. I did like the little foray into the gnome's home in the tree stump. That was really cute. All in all, a cute movie that will keep your attention, and enough snow to put you in the Christmas mood, but in order to get more stars, it would have to have more Christmas themes and decorations in it.

Norwegians got lucky as they were the ones where this film was made and already got it for the holidays last year. The rest of the world had to wait one more year, but now this fantastic little tale about the Christmas star has reaches most other countries as well. I see there's a version from the 1970s already which starred a considerably older lead actress. Here the main character is a little girl without family ad friends, who one day manages to escape her captors and make it to the castle where she interacts with some of the servants and the king himself and promises him to help in getting him back his daughter. I assume they picked a young girl for the lead here to make the film especially accessible to children here and all in all I think she did a fine job, especially as she was in almost all the scenes from start to finish. Looks-wise she reminded me a bit of the very young Miley Cyrus.The very few weaknesses in the story are made up for by most of the other aspects of the movie. The costumes are great, including those rags and tatters worn by the poor just like those spectacular dresses worn by the King and his close advisers. Same goes for the visual effects which are sometimes almost too good for a children's movie. The whole sequence with the girl and the northern wind are nothing short of mesmerizing. Finally the cinematography is very well done too. The snowy landscapes make for a great watch, be it in the kingdom or at the North Pole. There were a couple scenes, like those involving the witch's daughter or the love story between the servants, which didn't really add that much, but as the film was still only under 80 minutes long and occasionally they brought some nice comic relief, it's okay they stayed included. Thinking about it again, the daughter of the witch actually makes sense as she's the one (in addition to the incompetent baron) that keeps the witch look too sinister with her rebellious behavior in the first half of the film. It's a good ingredient that assures that the film can even be watched by very small children without really being scared. The meeting between Santa and Sonja was portrayed nicely too and that includes the "head helper" who was always busy and stressed out even if he didn't want his boss to know.Finally, I would like to emphasize who was possibly my favorite character from the movie: the little dwarf girl Mose. She didn't have too much screen time, but I really liked the scenes she was in and I'd totally watch a film that centers on her character and her family. Given her relationship to the bear for example, I'm sure there's a lot to tell and I'd be very eager to watch her in a possible spin off. Back to this one, even if I thought it suffered a bit from the ending unraveling a bit too quickly and lacking credibility, I'd certainly recommend "Reisen til julestjernen" to families with children during the Christmas holidays. The kids will love it, the grown-ups will like it.