It's tinsel and holly and "fa la la lolly" when Eloise lends her unique brand of holiday spirit to this made-for-television movie inspired by Kay Thompson's book of the same name. Sofia Vassilieva shines as ruckus-raising Eloise, who can simultaneously exasperate and exhilarate the genteel staff of New York's Plaza hotel. In the days before Christmas, Eloise learns that Rachel (Sara Topham), the daughter of Plaza owner Mr. Peabody, is returning after a long absence to marry mystery man Brooks Oliver. Eloise insists on helping with the Yuletide nuptials while plotting a matchmaking scheme of her own--to find true love for her best pal Bill (Gavin Creel), a free-spirited hotel waiter. Meanwhile, Eloise keeps busy sprinkling holiday mirth on everyone, including her beloved Nanny, played "rawther" marvelously by Julie Andrews. Whereas
Eloise at the Plaza portrays the precocious 6-year-old as mostly mischievous, this film showcases her compassionate side which, together with the strong ensemble cast, offers plenty of Christmas cheer. Watch for the sizzling chemistry and musical talents of Topham and Creel. (Ages 5 and older)
--Lynn Gibson
1 Better Than The First
I can't say that I toatlly enjoyed the first Eloise made for T.V. movie by Disney but, my youngest cousin wanted to give this a go for family movie night around the holidays. I watch it and was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it.
Little Eloise is done wonderfully by Sophia who plays the michviously little girl who just loves Christmas at the plaza. Eloise manages to change lives close to Christmas day having old friends re-connect as lovers and rescue a friend from a doomed marriage or help a grieving mother manage to stay at her home. Not to mention getting into plenty of trouble and buying heaps of presents. Eloise all in all has the life every little girl wants to have. I found myself dreaming about being at the Plaza at Christmastime myself.
My little cousin loved the movie and I enjoyed it myself. It's a perfect movie to add to your Christmas collection or just to watch with your kids. Right now, we're watching it in Febuary!!! It's a great treasure and I can only hope this isn't the last in the Eloise series.
2 All things are relative
Unlike the curmudgeon above, I enjoyed this movie because I took it as it was intended, a children's movie.
I have a 6 year old daughter who is exposed incessantly to appeals to the lowest common denominator in the form of twisted concepts of human sexualtiy, myopic schooling, and rank commercialism, amongst others. I am attempting with everything in me to rear a daughter with self confidence, intelligence, and above all the will to express herself in the face of adversity.
While I have substantial concern with the setting of Eloise, the underlying themes of the film I believe supercede the lifestyle of privlege portrayed. These themes are independence of thought, self confidence, innocence as a power for good, and the triumph of the free thinker over social castes.
It is indeed pablum, but pablum is extremely beneficial in it's context.
This film is light hearted, amusing, shallow, and utterly enchanting for the young at heart, including reluctant adults. Disney has it's place, and should not be rearing our children, but for a parent with interest in their child's upbringing, able to reinforce the beneficial aspects of the film, this quintessentially Disney movie is entirely pleasant.
Peace,
Someone's Daddy.
3 Still more Disney pabulum
I've always loved Kay Thompson's brilliant "Eloise" books. Eloise was born 3 years before me, although she benefits from a case of arrested development (not unlike Dennis the Menace), having reached the age of 6 in 1955 and never aging since. I've been to the Plaza Hotel as a child in the late '50s and early '60s, and my mother spent many happy years in the Big Apple, some as a Barbizon resident.
My grandmother once remarked to my mother that the oil portrait of Eloise in the Plaza lobby made her think "She must be the manager's daughter," since no other explanation could account for such an "ugly child" being so prominently displayed! Kay Thompson was a graduate of the same high school in St. Louis as my mother, and went on to achieve many wonderful, gutsy, triumphs in Hollywood as a dancer, choreographer, designer, and actress (including her role in "Funny Face" with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hebburn as the Vogue-ish magazine editor who advocated "Think pink!"). I greatly admire the multi-talented and mercurial Thompson and her inspired illustrator, Hilary Knight who did as much as Thompson to bring Eloise to life. For that matter, I very much like Eloise herself, who was by all accounts Kay Thompson's alter-ego.
The first Eloise book was subtitled "A book for precocious grownups, about a little girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel." Eloise was a child, but the books were not meant for children. Adults, especially those who've raised children of their own, understand that children are not Better, Wiser, Smarter, and Kinder than adults. But since at least "Pollyanna" if not before, Disney Studios has been churning out a constant stream of propaganda films asserting just the opoosite.
And now, Kay Thompson's wonderful playful, innocent, bratty, obnoxious, sweet Eloise has been beatified by Disney as their latest Child Sage. The problem with these lies (and all others) is that they blind people of all ages to their own shortcomings while unfairly blaming them on others.
Children are not wiser and better than adults, and they never have been, and they never will be, even if Jimmy Carter did think his 11-year-old daughter Amy had the last word to say about nuclear weapons (he was mistaken, of course). Children are typically much more cruel than adults, and if they say sweet innocent things from time to time (which is rare) it is only because they haven't lived long enough to learn better.
But they will learn better eventually; although some of them will suppress or deny their life-lessons to become seriously committed adult hypocrites. Adults who don't get this either don't have children, or don't pay attention to them as they really are, Disney Studios' party line notwithstanding.
In the books, Eloise's charm lay in her vulnerabiltity, her precociousness, her smart-aleck attitude, and her essential warmth, which asked no quarter and took no prisoners...delightful as childish qualities, but lacking in, shall we say...nuance. Disney tries to make her into an all-wise marriage counselor and social activist do-gooder. As such, Eloise is transformed from a delightful child into a *very adult* sociopathically manipulative prig, which quite ruins the film...as it also ruins real life when people go wrong like that.
This was never the character Thompson and Knight developed, who was simply a charming self-absorbed brat...and, by the way, a lot more credible as an actual child. Eloise's future as an adult has been speculated upon. Some think her a likely candidate for alcholism, drug addiction, and perhaps certain dysfunctional sexual disorders, as an adult child of an absentee mother and no father at all, raised in circumstances of artificial material luxury and moral decadence.
Such concerns are not unfocused, but since we all know that Eloise will never, and can never, get any older than 6 years of age, they are, I would suggest, unwarranted.
Meanwhile, I wish Disney Studios would either go away or do something else. Of course "children of all ages" (sanctimonious children and smug, narcissistic adults who can't or won't grow up) will eat this junk up as Disney knows very well.
But I think Kay Thompson would spin in her grave at this PC propagandistic re-working of her own special "inner child" who was so much more real than this Disney caricacture: not despite, but because of, her obvious childish failings.
On the plus side, the film's production values could not be better, and the little girl who plays Eloise is...perfect. Julie Andrews is absolutely wonderful as Nanny. The sets are great. I loved the first half hour of this film, before the Disney message (children, especially little girls, are the Master Race) became apparent. It's certainly well done! I did wonder, since there seemed to be an emphasis on making the time frame seem 1950s-like, why the featured toy store was Toys R Us instead of New York's flagship toy store, F.A.O. Schwartz?
4 KEPT MY 2 YEAR OLD GLUED TO THE TV
The best possible endorsement I can give this movie is that it kept my two year old son glued to the TV for a full two hours. That in itself is a Christmas miracle. We just watched this one on the ABC family channel and really enjoyed it.
Sofia Vassilieva is wonderful as Eloise. Quite charming and refreshing. Julie Andrews is co-stars as her patient Nanny, who takes care of Eloise when her mother is gone (which is often). Christine Baranski is also along for the ride as the nasty event planner Prunella Stickler, with an over the top villianess portrayal making her the one kids will love to hate.
A fun, often hectic adventure and a well-done Christmas movie.
5 I love, love, LOVE Christmas!
This is a fantastic movie. It is funny like all of the series, and is a lesson of trusting your heart. In this story, Rachel, (Mr. Peebody's daughter) decides to get married. The poor waiter, Bill, is heartbroken when he hears, and Eloise decides to take matters into her own hands (you know what that means!). This is a exciting movie that my "Nanny" and I love to watch together(and read.)
Love, Eloise's most adoring fans, Erica and Nanny
6 Absolutely Divine
Eloise, she is such fun. And I wish that I could live in the Plaza and share her adventures, and be her 'Mostly Companion.' Eloise played by Sophia Vassilieva was a perfect choice and was absolutely divine. And of course Julie Andrews!!! She is wonderful!
Everyone, in this film, is just so wonderful, that you feel that you are there! Everything is realistic, but make believe at the same time! Eloise, the clever, bratty, fun, loveable, sweet, and so caring is just the character that little girls love!
This movie is about 4 really main characters: Eloise (of course), Bill (the waiter) Nanny (Nanny), and Rachel, (The Plaza owners daughter). Eloise becomes involved in matchmaking. When Rachel returns from college with her fiance, Eloise and her become friends. And she finds out that Rachel loved the plaza when she was her age. She also finds out that her and Bill are old sweethearts and still secretly in love, against the will of her father who wants her to marry someone of importance.
And Brooks, her fiance is in his opinion perfect. But Eloise discovers Brookes secret, and contrives plots to get him out of the way and to put Bill in his place. Whether it's being kidnapped, spying, or helping the awful Mrs. Thornton have a Merry Christmas, Kevin Lima makes Eloise shine in the true spirit of the holidays!
Merry Christmas!
7 Eloise is such fun!!
Eloise is a six-year-old girl. While her mom travels the world, Eloise (Sofia Vassilieva) spends most of her time in New York City's Plaza Hotel, where she lives with her "mostly companion", rawther British Nanny (Julie Andrews). Eloise has quite the reputation at the Plaza; all of the employees know her routine daily adventures of curiousity and mischief.
Eloise at Christmastime is the second Wonderful World of Disney television movie adapted from Kay Thompson's popular line of picture books. Filmed directly after Eloise at the Plaza, this 2003 film retains director Kevin Lima and all of the relevant cast of its predecessor.
It's Christmastime in New York City, and Eloise anticipates her mother's return home. Meanwhile, in her ritual explorations, Eloise discovers a different return: the daughter (Sara Topham) of Plaza owner Mr. Peabody (Victor Young) has come home to be married on Christmas Eve to Brooks Oliver (Rick Roberts), a Harvard-educated young man that Eloise has her suspicions about.
Eloise's journeys around the Plaza also uncover that the crabby Mrs. Thornton's days at the Plaza may be numbered, though not as she first assumes. And the precocious girl later learns that her best friend and regular room service provider Bill (Gavin Creel), still has feelings for his ex-girlfriend, the soon-to-be-wed Rachel Peabody who he hasn't seen in years.
The film is comfortable in exploring the Plaza with the same pace and perspective of its rambunctious young matchmaker protagonist. It's never in any hurry to bring you the upbeat conclusion you seem to anticipate, instead choosing to bask in the drama and fun of Eloise's experiences.
From the title, you can imagine that Christmas figures largely in the film, and it does. We see Eloise going shopping around Manhattan (her ease contrasts with Nanny's struggle to find the perfect gift for Sir Wilkes), adding to her growing list of things she'd like to get, and inadvertently and repeatedly thwarting Nanny's efforts to decorate their suite. But Christmas is one element and not the entire film, so we're not simply getting the same character-transformation tale that's been played out in countless other holiday TV movies.
The central story actually seems better developed and more compelling than the screenplay for Eloise at the Plaza did. Whereas that one split its interest more evenly between its royalty and romance subplots, this film primarily focuses on the potential between Bill and Rachel, and Eloise's efforts to put them together. The setting of Christmas adds a layer of depth, but never dominates.
All in all, Christmastime succeeds as much as and even more than Plaza, again making good use of Eloise's infectious spirit and this time for a more engaging story. Julie Andrews and the remarkable Sofia Vassilieva have winning chemistry, and their characters' relationship adds a bit of resonance to make the rest of this jovial comedy echo a little more poignantly. Even if it's a tiny bit formulaic, Eloise at Christmastime compares favorably with a good amount of the theatrical live action fare that Walt Disney Pictures have put out in recent years.
You will simply love this movie, its one to have in your collection!
8 A Super Holiday Treat!
I first saw this movie on television. It is a funny Christmas movie for the entire family. This holiday season grow young through the story of Eloise at Christmastime!
9 Eloise at Christmastime
I think that this like Eloise at the Plaza is a great movie. It is one that childern of all ages can really enjoy. I really can't think of anyone that would not enjoy this movie.
I also think that Elise At The Plaza, is a great movie for all.
10 Delightful movie!
I have 5 children ranging from 14 years to 20 months and they all loved this movie. I rented the video and after watching it went right out and bought it the next day. Eloise was fun, the movie was lighthearted and watchable by all ages. The little girl who plays Eloise was such a gem. Julie Andrews was just as wonderful as Nanny as she was as Mary Poppins. This is a movie I could enjoy watching over and over again.
11 Rawther Wonderful!
Great movie!! if you liked the first one, you defintely like this one!! It brings out the kid in you, (I think we all have one)
totally recommend it!! even for us adults ;)
12 Engaging, endearing, and rawther marvelous!
I grew up in the fifties with the Eloise books, and although I thought they were cute, this movie brought them to life and much more. The Eloise of the books was comical, but the movie gave Eloise heart and soul beyond humor. The characters literally seemed to leap off the pages of the book and come to life. Sofia (Eloise) is as perfect in the part as a girl could be--bold, saucy, mischievous, and good-hearted. And Julie Andrews as nanny is as nannyish as could be--authentic, heartwarming, and funny. I enjoyed every moment of this movie and would recommend it to everyone, young and old.
