What make a story a Christmas story? Perhaps we have been too focused on the tinsel, the lights, and the snow when the heart should take the lead. After all, Christmas is a feeling and not just a time and place at the end of every December. David Lowery’s gorgeous, heartfelt animated short film, An Almost Christmas Story, recenters the focus on the deepest feelings of the season.
A little owl named Moon feels a bit misunderstood by his father and little brother. He constantly crash lands into their nest, erupting the forest with an explosion of twigs, and his father warns him that they need to the nest to stay concealed. ‘What if I want to be seen?’ the tyke asks his concerned pops. When Moon is chased by a larger bird, he lands in a tree that ends up being cut down and transported to New York City. Little does Moon know that he has taken refuge in one of the most famous trees–the Christmas tree at the center of Rockefeller Plaza. The ice skaters below don’t even know what story is unfolding above their heads as shopps hustle and bustle around them.
When Moon befriends a kind, young girl named Luna, they find themselves a little less lonely even though they don’t really understand each other. Along the way, the encounter a trio of street-wise pigeons (one delightfully voiced by Natasha Lyonne) who reminds Moon that he ain’t in the forest no more. Moon soon realizes that, despite his awesome adventure, he misses his father more than he ever could have imagined.
The stop-motion animation leans into the materials–the cardboard-ness and paint on full display. The dots of yellow, black, and white paint on a yellow cab, with its rolled-up tires, has a charming, tactile quality as if we are watching the most sophisticated yarn unfold on a snowy Christmas Eve night. The Rockefeller skaters are flat but glide across the ice, and the design of Moon and his family look like they are carved from wood with ornate scratchy details around their expressive eyes. It’s remarkably beautiful.
Lowery and his animators have somehow created a timeless tale that taps into our nostalgia while at the same time retains its fantastical elements of the forest. The golden hues of the streets of New York feel like the waning hours of a city street lamp.
An Almost Christmas Story makes us ponder our own roots of our yearly cheer. We have the debate if XYZ truly deserves the Christmas classification when we really should consider why we come back to these stories year after year. Lowery’s film is a timeless tale of enduring love, family, and tradition.
An Almost Christmas Story debuts on Disney+ on November 15.
