The Nutcracker (1993 film)

Scene 1: The Stahlbaum Home

Konstantin Ivanov's original sketch for the set of The Nutcracker (1892)

It is Christmas Eve. Family and friends have gathered in the parlor to decorate the beautiful Christmas tree in preparation for the party. Once it is finished, the children are sent for. They stare in awe at it sparkling with candles and decorations.

The party begins.[2] A march is played.[3] Presents are given out to the children. Suddenly, as the owl-topped grandmother clock strikes eight, a mysterious figure enters the room. It is Herr Drosselmeyer, a local councilman, magician, and Clara's godfather. He is also a talented toymaker who has brought gifts for the children, including four lifelike dolls who dance to the delight of all.[4] He then has them put away for safekeeping.

Clara and her brother, Fritz, are sad to see the dolls being taken away, but Drosselmeyer has yet another toy for them: a wooden nutcracker carved in the shape of a little man. The other children ignore it, but Clara immediately takes a liking to it. Fritz, however, breaks it, and she is heartbroken.

During the night, after everyone else has gone to bed, Clara returns to the parlor to check on her beloved nutcracker. As she reaches the little bed she put it on, the clock strikes midnight and she looks up to see Drosselmeyer perched atop it. Suddenly, mice begin to fill the room and the Christmas tree begins to grow to dizzying heights. The nutcracker also grows to life size. Clara finds herself in the midst of a battle between an army of gingerbread soldiers and the mice, led by their king. They begin to eat the soldiers.

The nutcracker appears to lead the soldiers, who are joined by tin soldiers, and dolls who serve as doctors to carry away the wounded. As the Mouse King advances on the still-wounded nutcracker, Clara throws her slipper at him, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to stab him.[5]

Scene 2: A Pine Forest

The mice retreat and the nutcracker is transformed into a handsome Prince.[6] He leads Clara through the moonlit night to a pine forest in which the snowflakes come to life and dance around them, beckoning them on to his kingdom as the first act ends.[7][8]

The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. Based on eight reviews, it holds a rotten rating of 50% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6/10.[9] The film was criticized by James Berardinelli for not capturing the excitement of a live performance; he wrote that it "opts to present a relatively mundane version of the stage production...utilizing almost none of the advantages offered by the (film) medium."[10] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times was mixed on it, and gave it 2 out of 4 stars criticizing it for not adapting the dance for a film audience and also its casting of Culkin who, he writes, "seems peripheral to all of the action, sort of like a celebrity guest or visiting royalty, nodding benevolently from the corners of shots."[11] In The Washington Post, Lucy Linfield echoed Ebert's criticism of Culkin, stating that "it's not so much that he can't act or dance; more important, the kid seems to have forgotten how to smile...all little Mac can muster is a surly grimace." She praised the dancing, however, as "strong, fresh and in perfect sync" and Kistler's Sugar Plum Fairy as "the Balanchinean ideal of a romantic, seemingly fragile beauty combined with a technique of almost startling strength, speed and knifelike precision."[12] The New York Times' Stephen Holden also criticized Culkin, calling his performance the film's "only serious flaw", but praised the cinematography as "very scrupulous in the way it establishes a mood of participatory excitement, then draws back far enough so that the classic ballet sequences choreographed by Balanchine and staged by Peter Martins can be seen in their full glory."[13]

During its theatrical run the film grossed $2,119,994.[1] In North America, it opened at number 16 in its first weekend with $783,721.[14]