''The Nutcracker'', also known as ''George Balanchine's The Nutcracker'', is a 1993 American

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...

musical film based on

Peter Martins Peter Martins (born 27 October 1946) is a Danish ballet dancer and choreographer. Martins was a principal dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet and with the New York City Ballet, where he joined George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and John Taras as ...

's stage production and directed by

Emile Ardolino Emile Ardolino (May 9, 1943 – November 20, 1993) was an American television and film director and producer, best known for his work on the films '' Dirty Dancing'' (1987) and ''Sister Act'' (1992). He has won an Academy Award for Best Document ...

. It stars

Darci Kistler Darci Kistler (born June 4, 1964) is an American ballerina. She is often said to be the last muse for choreographer George Balanchine. Early life Kistler was born in Riverside, California, the fifth child (with four older brothers) of a medic ...

, Damian Woetzel,

Kyra Nichols Kyra Nichols (born July 2, 1958) is an American retired ballet dancer and teacher. She joined the New York City Ballet in 1974 and was promoted to principal dancer in 1979. She is one of the last dancers to have worked with George Balanchine, a ...

, Bart Robinson Cook,

Macaulay Culkin Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin (born Macaulay Carson Culkin; ) is an American actor. Often regarded as one of the most successful child actors of the 1990s, he was placed 2nd on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Kid-Stars". Culkin rose to prom ...

, Jessica Lynn Cohen, Wendy Whelan, Margaret Tracey,

Gen Horiuchi Gen Horiuchi ( ja, 堀内元) is a Japanese ballet dancer and choreographer. He was a principal dancer of the New York City Ballet and is artistic director of the Saint Louis Ballet Company. Biography Gen Horiuchi (Hajime Gen Horiuchi) was born ...

, Tom Gold, and the

New York City Ballet New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company' ...

. The film was released by

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

under their Warner Bros. Family Entertainment label on November 24, 1993, four days after director Ardolino died. It received mixed reviews and was a

box office failure A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

, grossing only $2 million.

Plot

The film follows the traditional plot of the Nutcracker.

Act I

''Scene 1: The Stahlbaum Home'' Nutcracker design (cropped)

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. A march is played. 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 Marie'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. He then has them put away for safekeeping. Marie and her brother, Fritz, are sad to see the dolls being taken away, but Drosselmeyer has yet another toy for them: a wooden

nutcracker A nutcracker is a tool designed to open nuts by cracking their shells. There are many designs, including levers, screws, and ratchets. The lever version is also used for cracking lobster and crab shells. A decorative version portrays a person w ...

carved in the shape of a little man. The other children ignore it, but Marie immediately takes a liking to it. Fritz, however, breaks it, and she is heartbroken. During the night, after everyone else has gone to bed, Marie 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. Marie 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 soldier Tin soldiers are miniature figures of toy soldiers that are very popular in the world of collecting. They can be bought finished or in a raw state to be hand-painted. They are generally made of pewter, tin, lead, other metals or plastic. Of ...

s, and dolls who serve as doctors to carry away the wounded. As the Mouse King advances on the still-wounded nutcracker, Marie throws her slipper at him, distracting him long enough for the nutcracker to stab him. ''Scene 2: A Pine Forest'' The mice retreat and the nutcracker is transformed into a handsome Prince. He leads Marie 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.

Act II

''Scene 1: The Land of Sweets'' Vsevolozhskys design for Nutcracker

Marie and the Prince travel to the beautiful Land of Sweets, ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Prince's place until his return. He recounts for her how he had been saved from the Mouse King by Marie and transformed back into himself. In honor of the young heroine, a celebration of sweets from around the world is produced: chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia, tea from China, and candy canes from Russia all dance for their amusement; Danish shepherdesses perform on their flutes; Mother Ginger has her children, the Polichinelles, emerge from under her enormous hoop skirt to dance; a string of beautiful flowers perform a waltz. To conclude the night, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform a dance. A final waltz is performed by all the sweets, after which the Sugar Plum Fairy ushers Marie and the Prince down from their throne. He bows to her, she kisses Marie goodbye, and leads them to a reindeer-drawn sleigh. It takes off as they wave goodbye to all the subjects who wave back.

Cast

as The Sugar Plum Fairy * Damian Woetzel as The Sugar Plum Fairy's Cavalier *

as Dewdrop * Wendy Whelan as Coffee *Margaret Tracey as Marzipan *

as Tea * Tom Gold as Candy Cane *Lourdes López as Hot Chocolate * Nilas Martins as Hot Chocolate *William Otto as Mother Ginger *Peter Reznick as Fritz * Karin von Aroldingen as Grandparent *Edward Bigelow as Grandparent * Heather Watts as Frau Stahlbaum *Robert LaFosse as Dr. Stahlbaum *Bart Robinson Cook as Herr Drosselmeyer *Jessica Lynn Cohen as Marie Stahlbaum *

as The Nutcracker/Prince/Drosselmeyer's Nephew * Kevin Kline as Narrator *

Katrina Killian This is a list of New York City Ballet dancers. Principal dancers Soloists This is a list of New York City Ballet New York City Ballet#Soloists, soloists. Corps de ballet The following is a list of the current members of the corps de ballet ...

as Harlequin *Roma Sosenko as Columbine *Michael Byars as Soldier *Robert D. Lyon as Mouse King *Maureen C. McFadden Devlin as Drummer

Reception

Critical response

The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. Based on eight reviews, it holds a rotten rating of 50% on review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, with an average rating of 6/10. The film was criticized by

James Berardinelli James Berardinelli (born September 25, 1967) is an American film critic and former engineer. His reviews are mainly published on his blog ''ReelViews.'' Approved as a critic by the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, he has published two collections of r ...

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." Roger Ebert of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago ...

'' 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." In ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', 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." ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

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."

Box office

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

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nutcracker, The (1993 film) 1993 films Ballet films American Christmas films Warner Bros. films Films based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King Films directed by Emile Ardolino Filmed stage productions Regency Enterprises films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films