The kids in Nutcrackers—a new Ben Stiller Christmas movie that began streaming on Hulu today—display an amazing naturalism rarely seen in child actors. That’s because, in fact, the Nutcrackers kids are not actors. They are the real-life brothers—Atlas, Arlo, Ulysses, and Homer Janson, ages 8 through 13—who inspired director David Gordon Green to make the movie in the first place.
Directed by Green (known for his recent Halloween re-quel movies), with a script by Leland Douglas, Nutcrackers finds Ben Stiller in a role we’ve seen him in before, though not in quite some time: the uppity, curmudgeonly workaholic who is dropped in the middle of a chaotic situation. In this case, the chaotic situation is the sudden death of his sister and her husband. Mike (Stiller) is forced to leave his fancy real estate job in Chicago to care for his sister’s four rambunctious boys, while the state searches
...
Keep reading this article on DECIDER.