MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1994) * Adults who don't believe in Santa Claus are bad, adults who do believe in Santa are good. Got it? It's not about much of anything, but whatever it is is kind of like that. Shamelessly trite and hopelessly unsubstantial populism in a vaguely conservative nature, it's almost like they're auditioning the political rehabilitation of Ronald Reagan. Same kind of thing, "isn't a lie that makes people smile better than a truth that brings a tear to your eye?" Depends. Richard Attenborough looks perfect, but struck me as a particularly pompous and deranged Santa even before they threw him in Bellevue . Dylan McDermott is absolutely nauseating, until you need a lawyer, and isn't that part of the trick? Elizabeth Perkins deserves him, though Mara Wilson would appear to deserve better. Cast in the mould of her parents, hope won't emerge for another five or six years, at least. So it's stupid and irritating, mainly, though anti-rational elements predicated on a foundation of reflexive consumerism are recurrent. I mean, I'm into teleological suspensions of the rational as much as the next guy, but such tectonic juxtapositions demand a payoff along the lines of God, or utopian politics, or at least the ultimate and philanthropic triumph of cynicism. This Santa bullshit just don't cut it. Indirectly evokes sympathy and understanding for the "Bah, humbug!" set.
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