I've said for out the years that one of my least favourite cliches and all storytelling is the out of contact miscommunication that easily could have been solved if one person just took a single minute and said; ''Hey maybe we should look over what we just said back there, to make sure we're not screwing anything up.''
You know that problem you see in sitcoms all the time where somebody says something but the other person only heard part of the sentence or they misconstrued what the sentence was about. So they go on and do something ridiculous that just causes bigger problems down the line.
Yeah this film kind of has that issue.
But I'm not bothered about it here.
Simply because the miscommunication is a fundamental part of the story that's acknowledged from the beginning and is just kind of ignored.
Our main character is more or less aware that everything they're doing is kind of pointless and incorrect but their ambition to bring positivity to the situation is so high that they'll needlessly go out of their way to fail just in the hopes that it might turn out positive anyways.
That little character would be Olive. An adorable little dog who really enjoys the Christmas season and simultaneously has something of an image problem*.
Her owner feels as if she's not really feeling her role as a pet dog. She doesn't Chase cars or bark randomly. She doesn't roll around in flower beds.
Instead she just kind of acts like your everyday average person (except significantly nicer.)
This creates a bit of anxiety with in Oliver as she starts to wonder if she's a good pet. And all of this is made worse when her pet (a little flea) mishears her owner apologising to Olive which gives her the wrong information.
Setting her on a journey to become one of Santa's new reindeer as Donner (I think) the raindeer was incapacitated and unable to fly thus 'possibly' postponing Santa's delivery.
All of this it turns out to be inadequate as Santa can fly perfectly fine with just seven reindeer but simply chooses not to with an influx of negative letters from angry children telling Santa to beat it, get lost or even lose weight.
All of this was set up by an angry post-man who doesn't want to go through the tedious delivery routine of Christmastime which is significantly more demanding than summertime routines.
Honestly I feel a little bad for the postman at first.
I kind of get what he's getting at.
Christmastime is an incredibly difficult.
For anybody in the postal service your workload is added on significantly just like and Retail. However whatever sympathy i have for the postman goes out the window when you realizes that he's a borderline psychopath who constantly keeps trying to stomp out olives Ambitions of helping Santa Claus.
But really that's all just secondary. The whole reason for the film is just to watch the adventure itself. All of her and her little penguin buddy martini travelling from some eastern part of the United States up to the North Pole through what I can only presume is Canada. And there's nothing really extravagant about their travels it's just kind of interesting the people they run into in the odd little conversations they have. This is definitely one of the more intriguing Christmas movies as it kind of doesn't hit the mark of what it wants to do. Or at least I don't think it does. It wants to be this happy-go-lucky Christmas Adventure movie but it just kind of feels strange like a bunch of awkward people all staggering around together acting like jerks but then also trying to indulge in the Christmas spirit. Maybe that's why I like it so much. It's one of the few films where it really feels like the happiness of the Season really gets through to people. As everyone's just kind of bitter or disinterested in whatever's going on and then little Oliver who's just trying her best is able to convince everyone that just be a little nicer.
I kind of can't explain why I like this movie so much. It's kind of ironic that it's based around a reindeer story given that I put it in a similar category to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I don't think that's a very good film but I watch it every couple of years anyways just because it's there. And I feel the same way about this. Although it is significantly better than Rudolph.
It's this odd little Christmas movie that doesn't have that big of a fan base but I can't help but be happy any time I see it.
It's just cute, simple and an overall nice little Christmas Story. There's no giant steaks, there's no horrible contrivance, metaphor about dying or the human condition.
It's just a little dog who more or less know she's not a reindeer pretending to be one and trying to help Santa out just for the sake of it.
I guess you could argue that she has something of an identity crisis but even that's going too far as she never really commits to that.
Also I need to acknowledge the only reason this movie exists is because of a couple of words being slurred together to sound like 'Olive' as opposed ''all of''. Yeah that's the reason this exists.
Also, also this movie is technically a musical and it's not very good. A couple of the songs are cute but otherwise it's nothing to write home about. Hey that's just like Rudolph again. All of those songs are pretty bad. But one or two of them are enjoyable.
*So Olive's owner wants her to be like a real dog but all the other creatures in this universe also act like people.
It's not like Garfield where he kind of acts like a person but everybody still treats him like a cat. You can flat-out talk to Olive she'll respond to you.
I can't make sense that of the dichotomy between man and animal. I'd be an absolute idiot to try. Also I want one of Martini's fake Rolexxx watches.
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