David Gordon Green’s 2024 film “Nutcrackers”, which is currently available on Disney+ in South Korea, was an interesting experience for me. At first, I winced more than once along with its hero as observing how he struggles to handle those four children in his custody, but then I found myself gradually caring more about them as well as him, and I certainly cheered for all of them around the end of the story, even though I knew well from the very beginning that I would get that predictable outcome in the end. 

Ben Stiller plays Mike Maxwell, a successful real estate businessman who came from Chicago to some rural town in Ohio for taking care of an important personal business of his. His sister, who was incidentally a promising young ballet dancer a long time ago, and her husband lived there along with their four children, but now they are dead due to an unfortunate accident, and Max must take care of his sister’s four children for a while before any good foster parent candidate comes.

The main source of humor during the early part of the film comes from how these four children look rather unruly to say the least. They freely and happily grew up under their parents in their family farm, and Max is aghast at how messy their family place is in many aspects, while being also quite annoyed by their frequently willful behaviors.

Nevertheless, Max tries to do what should be done for them right now, though his mind is often occupied with some big business deal he must handle as soon as possible. Because there is not any suitable foster parent for them yet, he agrees to be their temporary guardian, and he also manages to have them take care of the currently messy status of their house, though that is just the beginning of many other things he must do for them.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Max eventually comes to like his sister’s children more than expected. As getting to know more about how they lived along with their dear parents, he understands and then cares about them a lot, so he comes to pay more attention to finding a suitable foster parent for them. In fact, there is actually a wealthy couple who may be interested in raising all of them together, though we instantly sense that this couple is not so ideal for them considering the children’s rather wild attitude.   

And there is also a little subplot involved with Gretchen Rice (Linda Cardellini), a local social service worker who genuinely cares about the children of Max’s sister. Although their first meeting is a bit awkward mainly due to his callous attitude, Gretchen subsequently appreciates how much Max comes to care about his sister’s children, and we also gradually sense some romantic vibe developed between them.

Leisurely moving from one narrative point to another, the screenplay by Leland Douglas often shines in a number of small moments to give us some glimpse into its main characters’ humanity. When he visits a certain foster candidate at one point later in the story, Max cannot help but notice how pretentious this candidate is, but he quietly keeps his thoughts to himself as a sensible man – even when what he suspects soon turns out to be true. While they look irrepressible in their spirit, his sister’s children really need someone to lean on, and the movie subtly conveys that to us via their little personal moments instead of spelling that out too loud.

In the end, the story arrives at the finale where its main characters become more honest about their feelings via one small public performance inspired by a certain famous classic work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. While the finale feels a bit clichéd at first, the movie eventually surprises us as taking an unexpected turn, and then we are touched by the following moment of healing and reconciliation.

As the main center of the story, Ben Stiller, who has recently demonstrated more of the serious side of his talent as shown from his Emmy-nominated directorial works in acclaimed Apple+ TV series “Severance”, dials down his usual comic persona a bit, and it is engaging to observe how his low-key performance fills out his character with human details to observe. At first, Max is not a particularly likable dude, but then we come to understand and accept him more as observing more of his inner decency, and Stiller also clicks well with Linda Cardellini during their several key scenes in the film.

Around Stiller, the four main young performers of the film, Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Arlo Janson, and Atlas Janson, hold each own place well as ably imbuing their respective roles with enough spirit and personality. It certainly helps that they are actually real-life siblings and the movie was shot in their real family farm thanks to their mother (She was a film school classmate of Green, by the way), and I was not so surprised to learn later that they have a certain particular set of skills necessary for the finale.

In conclusion, “Nutcrackers” is a little but enjoyable mix of drama and comedy, and it is certainly better than Gordon’s recent commercial horror films such as “Halloween” (2018) and “The Exorcist: Believer” (2023). Whenever we think he is no longer a wonderful filmmaker who gave us “George Washington” (2000) and “Undertow” (2004), Gordon always surprises us with his little project, and “Nutcrackers” is certainly one of such cases.