If you are like basically everyone in America you have a Netflix subscription (or like me you use a close friends). This holiday season the Netflix Christmas content seems to spew all over the recommended for you page. You have your classics like the Grinch and White Christmas. Then you have all the Hallmark rip offs and the romantic love story small town Christmas movies. But then you have one of the most underrated Christmas stories I’ve come across….Klaus.
Klaus is the story of a spoiled rich guy Jesper (Jason Schwartzman), who has just been skating through life doing basically whatever he wants. Finally his rich dad tells him he will be completely cut off from his estate, unless he can start a functioning postal service in BFE Smeerensburg. Which is a hop, skip and a jump away from Antarctica.
Jesper is forced to move here and live in a post office turned chicken shack. He hates it. The town has two clans the Ellingboe and the Krums who war back and forth causing everything in the town to suck. They won’t let their kids go to school, so the town school teacher Alva (Rashida Jones) is forced to find other means of work and has a fish cleaning business.
The town sucks. Jesper is just at a loss and has no idea what to do. He tries to get things going sending letters and going to all the houses, but he comes up short to no prevail. (He does try to mail one of the kids drawings, but that blows up in his face as well) Though the ferryman (Norm McDonald) tells him of a woodsman or lumberjack or something along those lines who lives in the middle of nowhere even further away. So Jesper being desperate grabs a horse and buggy (because I have no idea what year it’s set in) and trudges through the snow and ice.
He makes it to a small cabin in the woods and sees Klaus (J.K. Simmons). Klaus has a cabin full of homemade toys and Jesper fearing the gigantic man flees leaving behind the little boys drawing he tried mailing. Klaus picks it up. Something about the drawing has Klaus intrigued so he hunts down Jesper and forces him to take him to the little boys house. He delivers a toy that resembles the drawing and word spreads to the rest of the kids about the letters and toys.
Jesper sees the profit in this and starts charging the kids postage to deliver the letters and his numbers starting climbing, which means he’s one step closer to going home and being a trust fund baby again. The amount of children starts growing, but some can’t write, so old Jespey recruits the school teacher Alva to teach them. The toys start getting to be too much so Klaus and Jesper wrangle up some reindeer to pull the sleigh and we begin to see that not all children receive a toy. One boy gets a stocking of coal and Jesper tells him Klaus tracks their behavior, which causes all the kids to perform acts of kindness and inspires everyone to end the age old town feud.
The towns people hate this and they attempt to sabotage Klaus and Jesper. They have a bit of a falling out when Jesper pries too deep into Klaus’s tragic past, but a little Swedish Girl or Norwegian or something along those lines (She doesn’t speak English) requests a toy they can’t understand her. Jesper and Alva try to decipher her language and Klaus and Jesper rekindle their friendship through making her a sled. It’s honestly one of the best parts of the movie and hits you right in the feels as Invisible by Zara Larsson plays she shreds all over with that sled.
Things are looking great Jesper is starting to love it in Smeerensburg, but the townspeople make a truce and send 14,000 letters out causing his dad to show up and bring him home. We think Jesper is going to just up and leave everyone high and dry. He’s abandoning the kids, Alva, and Klaus. He has a change of heart and discovers a plan to sabotage Klaus. They work together and end the town feud thus making Smeerensburg a better place (Yes I’m summing it up a lot more happens, but I’m trying to give a broad overview so you want to watch it).
Anyways Klaus and Alva get married they have kids and Klaus continues his tradition of delivering toys, but on the twelfth year he up and disappears (symbolizing his death I think or maybe not). Jesper does wait by the fireplace every Christmas because the spirit of Klaus continues delivering presents and he gets to see his friend again.
It’s good I promise you. My retelling may be a little vague, but I don’t want to spoil all the fun for you. It’s a great movie to sit down with the whole family and watch. There’s humor and heart and just a great tale of how Santa Claus came to be. I hope you give it a shot and as always subscribe to my blog.
Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas!
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