Ben Stiller and David Gordon Green Blame ‘Cynicism’ in Hollywood Comedies for the Lack of Feel-Good Movies Like ‘Nutcrackers’

variety.com:

Ethan Shanfeld In David Gordon Green‘s “Nutcrackers,” Ben Stiller is forced to look after his newly orphaned nephews, four long-haired hell-raisers who run wild on their family farm.

As Stiller’s character, a lonely city slicker named Michael, works toward finding the boys a foster family, he comes to the realization that he needs them just as much as they need him.

It’s a rare feel-good comedy without much snark or darkness, and it charmed TIFF on opening night. As the film searches for a buyer, Stiller and Green expressed a strong desire for it to be shown in theaters as opposed to streaming, and they pondered why heartfelt comedies have been largely absent from Hollywood in the past decade. “There’s a cynicism over the last decade of comedies, and it’s been a few years since we really had that film drive audiences en masse to go [to theaters] and just laugh out loud, that had that simplicity,” Green said at Variety‘s Toronto Film Festival Studio, sponsored by J.Crew and SharkNinja.

As “Nutcrackers” searches for a buyer at TIFF, Stiller and Green have been vocal about their desire for the family-friendly comedy to open in theaters, rather than on streaming. “The movie business has evolved in a very unpredictable way that none of us would have imagined 20 years ago, due to streaming and everything else.