Klaus (2019) : Recap, Review and Reflection

Do you believe that saying? As for me, I do believe that with all my heart. This inspiring quote is from my all-time favorite Christmas movie, Klaus. And as my first Christmas here on Hive, I want to spread the love and the Christmas spirit to you all.

Klaus is Netflix's original animation. It came out in 2019 and was directed by Sergio Pablos and Carlos Martínez López. The movie isn't more than an hour and a half, but it definitely lasts long in my heart.

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Without further ado, let's get into

🎄 the Recap 🎄

The story begins with Jesper, voiced by Jason Schwartzman, an irresponsible spoiled rich heir of the Royal Postal Service, who was sent to be a postman of a faraway village called "Smeerensburg". After learning about the long-term feud between 2 local families in the village and no one would ever speak or send anything to each other, Jesper was more than hopeless to complete his mission of sending 6,000 letters in a year.

One day, he met an anti-social and mysterious toy maker, Klaus, voiced by J.K. Simmons. Jesper then came up with the evil plan of having kids write letters to Klaus so he could deliver the letters and the toys to eventually meet his quota. Without telling Klaus his plan, Jesper was working with Klaus in delivering letters and toys throughout.

Word begins to spread amongst the children about Mr. Klaus giving out toys and presents for nice children. The kids start to be good to one another and go to Miss Alva, voiced by Rashida Jones, to learn how to write. These unlikely friendships and cooperation between Jesper and Klaus returned laughter to Smeerensburg, reforming a new legacy of generous neighbors, but the leaders of both clans don't like this change and try to get rid of Jesper.

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⚠️ Spoilers Alert! ⚠️
Please skip the next paragraph (and continue on the Review and the Reflection part),
if you want to steer clear of spoilers.

! [Hidden Spoiler nr1 of Klaus] The leaders were exposing Jesper to Klaus and Alva that he just did that for the plan of getting away from Smeerensburg. Their friendship was crushed and Jesper had to leave the town. But this time Jesper came back and took charge of proving that the two families don't need to be enemies against each other. The tradition of giving gifts passed on, but Klaus had just disappeared.

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🎄 the Review 🎄

The reason why this movie has a special place in my heart is because no matter how many times I watched it, I still got teary eyes and restored my faith in humanity as always. Needless to explain more how much I love it. It, without a doubt, embraces all the good and hopes of the festival.

The voice actors are so good at portraying the character, moreover, the 3D/2D mood and tone of the movie help carry us, the audience in the train of the story. The characters are various and balance each other really well, making more sense of the different scenes throughout the movie.

I related a lot with Alva. One is because she's a teacher like me and her transition throughout the movie is really speaking to my inner belief. To me, Alva represents the connection spot between kids and adults by providing them a safe space for them to learn and spend time together. That's the starting point of friendship and the rebinding between 2 family feuds.

This scene of her making a hard decision of giving up her plan of leaving here and using the savings to buy school supplies for the kids really shows her bravery and sacrifice to "believe" that good things can happen in this town again. And it was such a powerful scene for me.

It reminds me so much of my time working as a teacher with underprivileged students. The situation will just push you to "do more" than you were assigned, and if you have a strong belief that your action will create something, you will do it in the best way that you can.

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Lastly, to this post, I want to conclude ...

🌟 the Reflection 🌟

Back to the quote "A truly selfless act always sparks another.", I really learned from that movie that there's no limitation to spreading good and kindness. After watching Klaus, I'm more confirmed that the most powerful things in this world are "Hopes and beliefs", and they could create endless opportunities for humanity.

The innocence of children is the beauty of this planet and we somehow tend to forget that. We, grown-ups always got stuck in our world and took the liberty of defining what is "good" and projecting that to others, especially the ones in our care. Sometimes adults don't even realize how our actions are reflecting on the later generations.

I believe that every action has consequences to affect others, even the smallest one can cause something big. Take a look at these 2 scenes. The change from the first day and the last day of Jesper in Smeerensburg, is something that so purely good and it came from the most common thing in humankind "being kind to one another" So, remember we are small, but we are matter and our actions can always spark good changes in the world.

Well, that's a (gift)wrap for my #nomnommovie review. I hope you guys get to enjoy my post and get to watch the movie if you have never seen it.

PS. All the official movie photos are from source

Stay merry and keep the Christmas spirits, guys

Khob khun kaa,
Nomnomnoodle 🍜

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