Prancer

A wounded reindeer and a precocious eight-year-old girl form an everlasting bond in this tender holiday drama about true devotion and friendship. An enchanting film full of Â"heart and gumptionÂ" (Roger Ebert), Prancer will set your imagination aflight! Jessica Riggs (Rebecca Harrell) plays an angel in her school pageant...but she becomes a real guardian angel when she finds an injured reindeer in the forest. Convinced that the deer is SantaÂ's very own Prancer, Jessica vows to nurse him back to health and return him safely home. But before she can carry out her plan, Jessica discovers that her father (Sam Elliott) has made another Â? very different Â? plan of his own! Will Jessica be able to help her antlered friend find his way back to Santa in time to make their deliveries on Christmas Eve? The magical final scene is sure to make your heart soar!

A reindeer doesn't have to fly to be magical to someone, and Prancer succeeds, in its unassuming and plainspoken way, to prove that point. This 1989 family film stars Rebecca Harrell as 9-year-old Jessica, a motherless schoolgirl raised (and largely ignored) by her bereaved and embittered father (Sam Elliot), an apple farmer. While Jessica's dad struggles to keep food on the family table, the little heroine worries over the fate of a wounded reindeer she meets and wistfully identifies as a member of Santa's sled crew. The story may sound overly precious, but the film is grittier and more realistic than that. Far more concerned with wobbly family relationships than gilded escapism, Prancer is a rare family film that can entertain without invoking fluffy enchantment. Followed 12 years later by a sequel, Prancer Returns. --Tom Keogh