{"id":7759,"date":"2024-10-30T23:07:40","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7759"},"modified":"2024-10-30T23:07:40","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:07:40","slug":"prancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/30\/prancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Prancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Prancer <\/strong>(1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Fantasy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated G (mildly scary moments and upsetting themes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John D. Hancock\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Greg Taylor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Maurice Jarre\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Misha Suslov\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 17, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Sam Elliott, Rebecca Harrell, Cloris Leachman, Abe Vigoda, Michael Constantine, Rutanya Alda, John Joseph Duda, Ariana Richards, Mark Rolston, Johnny Galecki.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $18.5M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Now here\u2019s a sweet little holiday treat, a perfect stocking stuffer for the kids. Prancer<\/strong> came and went unnoticed in theaters in \u201989. I didn\u2019t see it until it hit home video the following Christmas. I wanted to see it (mainly because of Sam Elliott), but I was too embarrassed to be seen buying a ticket for a kid\u2019s movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As I watched Prancer<\/strong>, I was reminded of a story I once heard about a man debating the existence of Santa Claus with a three-year-old girl. He asked her how one man could deliver presents to all the children of the world in one night. She replied, \u201cBecause he\u2019s magic!\u201d. There\u2019s nothing more special than a child\u2019s strong belief in the magic of Christmas and I would think Santa\u2019s flying reindeer belongs at the top of the list of miraculous things.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s this system of belief that has the 8YO heroine at the heart of Prancer<\/strong> convinced that the injured reindeer she encounters in the woods near her house belongs to old St. Nick himself. Jessica Riggs (Harrell) loves Christmas so much that she listens to the music all year round. She\u2019s certainly the most enthusiastic (if not the most talented) singer in her second grade class. She truly believes in the magic of the season; hence, she\u2019s the ideal person to make such an incredible discovery. If only she could get others to believe her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jessica is being raised by her father John (Elliott, Roadhouse) following the death of her mother. He\u2019s so preoccupied with his failing apple farm that he doesn\u2019t even make the time to see his daughter perform in the school Christmas pageant. Things are so rough he wants to send Jessica to live with her Aunt Sarah (Alda, Mommie Dearest). Her older brother Steve (Duda) isn\u2019t especially nice to her either.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One day while walking home from school, she spots an injured reindeer in the woods. She identifies him as Prancer from the many books she owns about Christmas. Eventually, she lures the creature to the family barn where she attempts to nurse him back to health so she can return him to his owner in time for the big night. Her father wouldn\u2019t approve of what she\u2019s doing (they can\u2019t afford to take care of an animal), so she keeps it a secret from everybody but a select few like her best friend Carol (Richards, Jurassic Park) and the town vet (Vigoda, Look Who\u2019s Talking).<\/p>\n

\u00a0When Jessica needs to earn money to buy feed, she asks grumpy recluse Mrs. McFarland (Leachman, Young Frankenstein) for work. She also attempts to contact Santa by asking a department store Santa (Constantine, My Big Fat Greek Wedding) to pass along a letter explaining the situation to the big guy. It turns out he\u2019s the owner of the town newspaper and thinks it would make an excellent human interest story. In other words, her secret is about to get out and attract all sorts of unwanted attention.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t use the word \u201cdelightful\u201d too easily, but it\u2019s the perfect word to describe Prancer<\/strong>. What a delightful movie to show the little ones around Christmas. One of the many things that make this movie work is that the kid isn\u2019t completely annoying. Moreover, young Harrell looks and acts like an ordinary kid. She doesn\u2019t look like she just stepped off a runway somewhere and doesn\u2019t act smarter than the adults around her. Her character has the same sense of innocence about her that we had when we were children. I remember getting so excited about Santa\u2019s annual visit when I was about her age.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Prancer<\/strong> is blessedly free of all the cynicism that has made its way into many of today\u2019s so-called holiday movies. It\u2019s like a breath of fresh air after watching the likes of Christmas with the Kranks, Deck the Halls and Four Christmases. The rest of the cast does a great job as well, especially Elliott as the rough father who has a difficult time expressing his love for his little girl. It\u2019s always great to see a couple of old vets like Vigoda and Leachman act. Who doesn\u2019t love Fish and Maw Maw?<\/p>\n

\u00a0It goes without saying that Jessica\u2019s unique situation touches a lot of hearts and it\u2019s nice to see the townspeople show their support in her determination to fulfill her promise to Santa and Prancer. It\u2019s movies like Prancer<\/strong> that make me remember the magic of Christmas. It\u2019s a reminder that Christmas is supposed to be a happy time. It\u2019s a movie that only a real Scrooge would dislike.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prancer (1989)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Orion\/Fantasy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated G (mildly scary moments and upsetting themes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John D. Hancock\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Greg Taylor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Maurice Jarre\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Misha Suslov\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 17, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Sam Elliott, Rebecca Harrell, Cloris Leachman, Abe Vigoda, Michael Constantine, Rutanya Alda, John Joseph Duda, Ariana Richards, Mark Rolston, Johnny Galecki.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas","category-holiday-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Prancer-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7759"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7852,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7759\/revisions\/7852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}