12 Reviews of Christmas - Noelle (2019)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, this is a movie that's been on my radar for the last couple of years, and now I'm finally getting to discuss my thoughts on it. So, for 12 Reviews of Christmas, let's take a look at the 2019 Disney+ original movie: Noelle. 

          The movie starts off with an introduction to the Kringle children: Nick and Noelle. Nick is being groomed to take over his father's role as Santa Claus, while Noelle is charged with spreading holiday cheer throughout Santa's village. Cut to years later, and it's been five months since Santa's unfortunate passing, and Nick isn't performing well on terms of being the new Santa. Worried that her brother will be too stressed to perform his job come Christmas Eve, Noelle suggests that Nick takes the weekend off. Some days after departing, the sleigh returns with no signs of Nick anywhere. The high council of elves then votes on Nick and Noelle's cousin, Gabe, to be the new Santa...at least until Nick is found and returned. 

          Noelle decides to find where Nick is hiding, and finds clues that lead her to Arizona. Along with her childhood nanny, an elf named Polly, Noelle takes the sleigh to Arizona to find her brother. The sleigh parks in an outdoor shopping mall, and although she nearly gets in trouble with the manager, Helen, Noelle is allowed to leave the sleigh at the mall, as patrons believe it's a part of a holiday display. Noelle then recruits the help of a private investigator, Jake, who is a divorced dad, and she also meets Jake's son Alex. During the search for Nick, Noelle discovers that she can understand any language, including American Sign Language, when she meets a woman at a homeless shelter who has a deaf daughter. And evidently, understanding every language is one of the many abilities of Santa Claus. 

            Jake puts together some clues and deduces that Nick has set up a new yoga studio. Noelle goes to the studio and finds Nick, who believes that he has found his true calling as a yoga instructor, and he's no longer wanting to return to the North Pole. Unfortunately, Gabe is royally messing things up at the North Pole, as he's using technology to create a new delivery system, and a new naughty-nice system that scrutinizes children for even the smallest of mishaps, like not brushing teeth, or not making beds, and this system deduces that only 2,837 nice children are out there in the world. Mrs. Claus tries her best to convince Gabe that his new system is wrong, but he's too confident in it to listen to reason.

           Noelle heads back after Nick upon reading a letter from her mother about the terrible goings-on at the North Pole, and finds him at a yoga retreat in the desert, and finally convinces him to come back with her. At the mall, Nick does his best to work as a mall Santa, but sees that Noelle can tell if a child is naughty or nice, which is another one of Santa's abilities. While Noelle steps aside to talk to Jake for a moment, the actual mall Santa shows up, and Noelle gets arrested for fighting with the Santa and a police officer. With some convincing from Polly, Jake helps free Noelle from a psychiatric ward, and she, Nick, and Polly return to the North Pole. 

          At the North Pole, Nick speaks to all of the elves, and informs them that he believes that he is not meant to be the next Santa. He states that Noelle is the one that is meant to be the next Santa. Despite some arguments among the elves, one of the high council elves looks over the Santa Codex and determines that there is no law against a woman being Santa Claus. So, Noelle suits up, and it's clearly too big for her, and she takes the sleigh and heads to deliver the gifts. There are a few mishaps at first, but after visiting the shelter from earlier, and everyone there wishing her a Merry Christmas and calling her Santa, Noelle gets a confidence boost, the suit shrinks to fit, and she resumes delivering the gifts. 

           After successfully delivering the gifts to all the children around the world, Noelle is hailed as the new Santa, Gabe goes back to his old I.T. job, Nick starts up a yoga studio at the North Pole, and Polly is made an elder elf of the high council of elves. 

         Okay, so I will admit that the concept of Noelle, which involves the passing of the torch from one Santa to another, isn't a new one, but I will admit that this one was a unique one. In addition, having the focus being on Santa's daughter is definitely interesting, as it's definitely the first time I've seen it, myself. 

             I definitely enjoyed a lot of the supporting cast, like Bill Hader, Billy Eichner, Shirley MacLaine, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Julie Hagerty, and so forth. My favorite is probably Bill Hader as Nick, as he is insanely funny, and he definitely gets into the whole zen thing that Nick has throughout the movie. Bit the real stand-out is the lead star herself: Anna Kendrick as Noelle. Anna's bubbly personality definitely shines, and is what elevates this movie from merely a fun Christmas movie to a future holiday classic. 

           While the concepts and themes aren't wholly original, I feel that, solely based around the heartwarming moments with Noelle meeting several people in her quest, and the infectiously sweet and bubbly personality of Noelle herself, this is definitely one to check out sometime on Disney+. I give Noelle a rating of 4/5. This is Chuck signing off. 12 Reviews of Christmas continues tomorrow with South Park: It's Christmas in Canada, but stay tuned for this evening to catch my review of Spider-Man: No Way Home.