‘Nutcrackers' is Sadly Not David Gordon Green's Comeback Vehicle [TIFF]

I’ve finally landed at TIFF and had enough time to catch Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence” (excellent!), Nacho Vigalondo’s “Daniela Forever” (terrible!) and Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (which I had already seen at Cannes).

This 49th edition of the fest, set to take place for the next 10 days, opened this evening with David Gordon Green’s “Nutcrackers.” Hate to say it, but this one fell flat. It hits every note you’d expect and plays it way too safe. Anybody expecting a comeback from Green, after his disastrous “Halloween” and “Exorcist” stints, are sadly out of luck.

“Nutcrackers” follows strait-laced and work-obsessed real estate developer, Michael (Ben Stiller), as he is suddenly thrust into becoming a caregiver for his four rambunctious nephews after his sister dies in a road accident. He drives his yellow Ferrari to farmland Ohio, with a plan to only stay three days, at least until foster care is found for the kids.

This is Stiller’s first lead role in seven years, and he’s fine in this, albeit not that challenged by a thinly written role that feels like it’s something out of a Hallmark movie. Green, going back to his indie roots, shot the film in 35mm, and it looks great, but nothing fresh is brought to the table. The jokes fall flat. The story is way too familiar.

The main problem with “Nutcrackers” is the script, written by Leland Douglas (“Call of the Wild”), which is filled with clichés. You can guess, step by step, beat by beat, what is going to happen next in the story. At first Michael cannot stand the kids, but predictably he starts to realize that he might have found the home he never had. It’s the definition of maudlin.

Green, 48, was once a filmmaker I deeply respected. He was once heralded as a kind of heir to Terrence Malick, at least with his first four films: “George Washington,” “All the Real Girls,” “Undertow” and “Snow Angels.” Some of Green’s other “indie” films included “Prince Avalanche” and “Joe.” The late Roger Ebert was also a major fan of his.

However, these last 10 years, Green has gone so far down the deep end in Hollywood claptrap, becoming a full-on paycheck man for Blumhouse, that we wondered if he’d ever go back to more personal filmmaking. “Nutcrackers” was being billed as a return to his indie roots, but it turns out to be the exact same derivative film that we all thought he was trying to run away from.