TIFF 2024's world premiere Nutcrackers showcases four orphans' submerged grief in form of comedy drama

The 2024 film 'Nutcrackers' is directed by David Gordon Green.

The film showcases Michael, a hotshot Chicago real estate developer, who did not devote any time for family, finds himself taking the responsibility of his young and mischievous rural nephews after his sister and her husband are killed in a terrible accident.

He drives out to his sister’s small Ohio town thinking he just needs to sign some papers and get back to the city. But instead he is thrusted with the responsibility of looking after her sister's house, farm in addition to the four young boys Justice (Homer Janson) aged 12; middle child Junior (Ulysses Janson), 10; and 8-year-old twins Samuel and Simon (Atlas and Arlo Janson).

The kids are introduced breaking into a fun fair at night, hot-wiring one of the rides before a security guard wakes up to what’s happening and they bolt across a field.

Michael is greeted with a bill for the damages they caused, as well as back-rent on the ballet studio run by his sister.

He’s also informed by the family services agent Gretchen (Linda Cardellini) that the prospective parents (played by Toby Huss and Edi Patterson) initially eager to take in the brothers have declined. It is then that Mike realizes he won’t have to find a new home for the orphaned children, instead they found a new home for him.

When Michael notices his nephews' talent in dancing, he plans with them to stage a reboot of “The Nutcracker” which brings out the four boys' hidden grief and emotions by which they pay tribute to their lost parents.

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Gordon Green now lives in Charleston, South Carolina. His directed films included George Washington (00), All the Real Girls (03), Pineapple Express (08), and the Festival selections Stronger (17) and Halloween (18). Nutcrackers (24) is his latest film.

(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)