I've been planning on skewering The Nightmare Before Christmas for weeks now, but you know what? My heart's just not in it today. Blame it on burnout, blame it on sleep deprivation, or (most likely) blame it on the fact that I just finished watching the damned thing and I've lost the will to live.
I just don't get what it is about this film that turns grown and otherwise perfectly reasonable women into squealing infants. Sometimes, with films like Mamma Mia! or Titanic, this fills me with a warm glow of smug self-righteousness. When it comes to TNBC, however, it just leaves me feeling drained and depressed.
Look, it's just an appalling film on pretty much every level, okay? Certain shots are nicely composed, granted, and I have a certain grudging admiration for anybody who chooses to create a full-length stop motion feature, but other than that, I'm honestly not sure I can find a good word to say about it.
So, where do I start? I'll keep things tidy, I think, and divide my objections into two categories: the ethical and the aesthetic.
Looking at the film from an ethical standpoint, it's still hard to know where to begin. The best place is probably the basics, I guess, in that it's about a privileged white manchild who feels misunderstood despite being in charge of an entire world that caters to his every whim. There are precisely two named female characters, one of whom is hopelessly devoted to the good guy and the other of whom is equally hopelessly devoted to the big bad who, I couldn't help but notice, has the only distinctively black voice in the entire production. Oh, and don't get me started on the character of the Mayor, a cowardly type who, at one point, states that he can't be expected to make decisions because he's only an elected official. Do I really need to point out how many shades of wrong that is?
Honestly, though, I could probably forgive TNBC all of this if it wasn't for, well, how do I put this? Pretty much every other damned thing about it. Listen, I know it's a kids' movie, okay? I know that it's generally accepted that subtlety will be lost on the little darlings. I also know that it's a Hallowe'en-themed piece and that certain conventions are meant to be observed. None of this, however, alters the fact that the songs in this piece of dreck make my eardrums want to commit ritual suicide. The music is okay, I suppose, barring the fact that it's largely composed of a few themes repeated and tweaked ad nauseam, but the lyrics are atrocious doggerel residing on a level somewhere beneath those you find in the movie versions of 80's toy tie-in cartoons, and the sense of burning embarrassment I feel on Danny Elfman's behalf colours my feelings towards every other aspect of the piece.
I can see how kids might like the film, with its sanitised spookiness and cutesy clichés, but I think it says something sad about our society when we're prepared to ignore our critical faculties (or not to engage them) for the sake of a hit of nostalgia. Yes, adult life is hard and it sucks sometimes, but even on my worst days, the thought of remaining in a state of permanent semi-infantilisation terrifies me even more.
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