25 Greatest Christmas Films: #19 — ‘Prancer’ (1989)

A lovely, low-key, tender family film with a rich spiritual theme about a young, imaginative girl who finds and protects one of Santa’s reindeer.

Thanks to a wonderful performance by the young lead, Rebecca Harrell, and Sam Elliott and Cloris Leachman ably bringing to life a couple of well-crafted and surprisingly complicated characters, what might’ve been cloying and fantastical remains grounded and focused on the realistic drama of a family going through very tough times. Most appreciated is that Prancer’s arrival doesn’t work as some sort of deus ex machina. When we leave our characters their problems remain. Sam Elliott’s still widowed and the bills are still due. What they are left with, however, is a stronger appreciation for one another and that antidote for despair known as hope.

“Prancer” didn’t make much of an impact at the box office, but enough of a following has developed over the years that a direct-to-video sequel was produced in 2001. Part of what makes the appeal of the original so enduring is presenting a rarity in the Christmas genre: characters who live in a part of the world known as Flyover Country — everyday rural, small town folks who are struggling to make ends meet. Most holiday films (and this isn’t a complaint) take place somewhere picture perfect. “Prancer” tells its story in the rural mud and cluttered homes most of us recognize and the people living in this very real place are dealing with the very real problems most of us have faced.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the warm holiday escapism of a crooner Priest who sets juvenile delinquents on the path to community college with a song or the antics of a couple of burglars in John Hughes’ idealized Chicago suburb… But there’s something to be said for being able to relate to a film’s characters and their problems.

If present-day Hollywood isn’t ignoring those of us who know what it is to work a farm and sweat problems bigger than whether or not a BB gun will find its way under the tree, they’re demeaning and stereotyping us. “Prancer” not only presents our families and neighbors as the very real and noble people they are, but uses one of Santa’s reindeer as an effective metaphor for the power and value of something else Hollywood frequently  demeans and stereotypes: Faith.