Klaus Review

The look is the argument. Pablos, who animated on The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules and Tarzan, set out to imagine how 2D animation would have evolved if the big studios had not switched to computers, and his Madrid studio used lighting and texturing tools that give flat drawings volume and warm, directional light. Snowbound Smeerensburg, grey and hostile at first and lamplit by the end, looks like a painting that moves. Most studios, Netflix included at first, turned the project down as too risky.

The story is more ordinary. Jason Schwartzman's Jesper is a spoiled heir sent to the worst posting in the kingdom, and his change of heart runs on the usual schedule; Peter Debruge found the plot overcomplicated, and the feuding clans are broad slapstick. J. K. Simmons gives Klaus a grieving gravity, Rashida Jones plays a teacher turned fishmonger, and the Sámi girl Márgu, voiced in Northern Sámi by Neda Margrethe Labba, is the most touching thing in it.

It won the BAFTA for Best Animated Film and seven Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, and was the first Netflix animated film nominated for the Oscar. Few Christmas films have looked like this.