The Christmas Dream Musical Review: The Kingdom's First Stage-to-Screen Spectacle in Decades Is Big On Sentimental Spectacle.
Hailed as the first Thai musical in half a century, The Christmas Dream comes under the direction of British filmmaker Paul Spurrier and presents a fascinating mixture of the contemporary and the classic. The film serves as a modern-day Oliver Twist that travels from the hills of the north to the bustling capital of Bangkok, featuring old-school Technicolor visuals and an abundance of heartstring-tugging show-stopping numbers. The music and lyrics are crafted by Spurrier, accompanied by an orchestral score composed by Mickey Wongsathapornpat.
An Odyssey of Innocence and Ethics
Portrayed with a steely determination but in a more diminutive package, Amata Masmalai takes on the role of Lek, a ten-year-old schoolgirl. She is forced to escape after her violent stepfather Nin (portrayed by Vithaya Pansringarm) fatally assaults her mother. Setting out with only her disabled toy Bella for companionship, Lek is guided by a strong moral compass, directed toward a better life by the ghost of her late mum. Her quest is populated by a cast of colorful companions who challenge her principles, among them a pampered rich girl desperately seeking a true friend and a charlatan physician hawking questionable remedies.
Spurrier's affection for the musical genre is abundantly clear – or, to be precise, it is resplendent. Initial rural sequences especially bottle the warm, vibrant feel reminiscent of The Sound of Music.
Visual and Choreographic Pizzazz
The choreography often possesses a lively snap and pace. A particular standout breaks out on a corporate business park, which acts as Lek's introduction to the Bangkok rat race. Featuring business executives cartwheeling in and out of a great clockwork cortege, this stands as the singular moment where The Christmas Dream approaches the stylized complexity characteristic of classic era musical cinema.
Musical and Narrative Shortcomings
Although lavishly arranged, much of the score is excessively anodyne musically and lyrically. Rather than studding songs at pivotal points in the plot, Spurrier saturates the film with them, apparently trying to mask a underdeveloped storyline. Substantial adversity is present solely at the beginning and conclusion – with the mother's death and when her hope falters in Bangkok – is there enough hardship to offset an overly straightforward and saccharine journey.
Fleeting hints of gentle class satire, such as when Lek's stroke of luck attracts greedy locals crawling all over her, are hardly enough for more mature viewers. While could buy into the pervasive optimism, the foreign setting cannot conceal a fundamentally sense of blandness.
