‘Boy Called Christmas’ sets perfect holiday mood

MOVIE REVIEW

“A BOY CALLED CHRISTMAS”

Rated PG. On Netflix.

Grade: A-

If you’re in the holiday mood for a Santa Claus origin story, look no farther than “A Boy Called Christmas,” a British film shot in Finland. I guarantee you, this movie is going to put a smile on your face and enchant the most hard-to-please child. Plus, it boasts a magnificent turn by Sally Hawkins as a kind of Elf Wicked Witch of the West named Mother Something, and it moreover boasts a talking computer-generated mouse named Mika voiced by Stephen Merchant.

It all begins when a sad, widowed father named Matt (Joel Fry) asks his dead wife’s aged Aunt Ruth (Maggie Smith) to babysit his three grieving children on Christmas Eve.

Aunt Ruth promptly begins telling the skeptical and truly despondent children a story about a boy a very long time ago in Finland named Nikolas (a very good Henry Lawfull). Nikolas has also lost his mother, whose miniature carved face he carries. She believed in elves and claimed to have been to Elfhelm, their home in the mountains.

When the local bewigged King (a delightful Jim Broadbent) challenges his people to restore hope in the kingdom by going on a quest, Nikolas’ beloved woodsman father (Michiel Huisman) goes off with a group of men to the north, hoping to find their fortune and leaving Nikolas with his cruel Aunt Carlotta (Kristen Wiig).

Along with his thus far non-talking mouse Mika, Nikolas, wearing the tasseled, red leather cap his mother made for his father, runs off to seek his father. At some point, he and Mika find themselves being stalked by an injured reindeer with an arrow in its flank. Nikolas removes the arrow, and the reindeer, soon to be dubbed Blitzen, befriends the boy and his mouse and lets them ride on his back through a magnificent winter landscape.

Based on a 2015 book by Matt Haig, “A Boy Called Christmas” is the best thing director and co-writer Gil Kenan has done since “Monster House” (2006). He got lost remaking “Poltergeist” unnecessarily and co-writing “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.”

Cast members Smith and Broadbent are both alums of the “Harry Potter” series. Wiig is a scream as the evil aunt, who makes Nikolas sleep outside his one-room cabin in the woods in the cold and snow and does terrible things to the boy.

Elfhelm is a wooden, miniature version of Oz, complete with a witch-like leader, who hurls blasts with her curvy, black staff. How about a giant computer-generated troll, who tries to eat Nikolas? Toby Jones adds a dram or two of paternal charm as an elf named Father Topo.

“A Boy Called Christmas” casts quite a spell.

(“A Boy Called Christmas” contains violence.)