I wanted to love this movie. The cast is stellar. Dick van Dyke and Angela Lansbury are outstanding (still vibrant in their 90s!). Alivia Clark's voice is lovely. The costumes and locations are first-rate. It's "Pollyanna" meets "Annie" and "Oliver," but unfortunately "Les Miserables" is thrown into the mix. The stories told are uneven, with missteps throughout. By the way, Annabelle gets the nickname "Buttons," but that has nothing to do with the story. A much better title would be "Emily's Wish." Furthermore, because the sound is out of sync, it feels oddly inauthentic. It's mostly very depressing, and barely about Christmas. I wouldn't show this to anyone under 10, as it's way too scary and depressing -- even with the fun songs and heartwarming, uplifting message. "Mary Poppins" is a 10. This movie is no 10!

Made in a very nice way musicaly, but the acting by the cast are extremely amateuristic, somewhat stiff and fumbling, the story jumps from death to death and sorrow to sorrow, and have a mix of fractions from other yulseason classics from the past.

because its a musical, and if it had been made in the 1970's it would have pressed to impress, but its not up to date wether productionwise or technically- what i enjoyed the most where to hear the voice of angela landsbury again, my gawd i envy those who have such great great great grandmother at hand. she is the narrator of the story, and makes it some kind of vivid and entangeling dreamlike.

so if you can accept some broken leg acting and a musical of the past then have a look, its not a strong mobie, but will touch the hearts to those who are mature enough, and are able to read between the lines. the grumpy old man thinks 5 is a maks.