The name Hans Christian Andersen should be a familiar one: the author of such classic fairy tales as "The Ugly Duckling," "The Little Mermaid," and "The Snow Queen," his works have been appreciated not just in his native Denmark, but all over the world. In many ways Andersen's life was very much like the fairy tales he wrote (or perhaps more accurately, his fairy tales often reflected elements of his own life): from utterly impoverished and uneducated beginnings, Andersen managed to make his own way in life, overcome difficulties, and achieve tremendous fame in his own lifetime.

Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairytale takes an approach to Andersen's life that is actually extremely accurate, even though it may seem too fanciful to be true, including his unorthodox behavior in public and his dogged persistence even in the face of repeated rejection. He was a unique character, composed in equal measures of childlike enthusiasm, vivid imagination, and utter obliviousness to anything around him that didn't fit his own rose-tinted view of the world. The film picks up with Andersen as a young man, just about to set off to seek his fortune, and follows him through his ascent to fame. It's an interesting story, with the question always being how on earth this odd, overly sensitive young man will manage to succeed... and whether he will ever learn to relate to other people outside the realm of the fairy tale. 

One concession that the filmmakers made in adapting Andersen's real biography is in emphasizing the role of his relationship with the singer Jenny Lind. In reality, Andersen fell madly in love with many women over the course of his life, including Lind; in the film, Lind becomes a more significant character and serves as the focus for Andersen's desperate search for love. While it's not strictly accurate in that respect, I found it to be a wise dramatic decision that is faithful to the emotional content of Andersen's life, if not the exact details.

The only real quibble that I have with the film's accuracy is its portrayal of Andersen's writing career. He was a prolific writer of plays, poetry, novels, and travel books along with his fairy tales, which he considered to be among the least important of his work. While it's Andersen's fairy tales that have ensured him lasting appreciation, it was his other work that established his reputation in Denmark... but the film presents exactly the opposite situation, and barely even hints that he wrote anything other than the fairy tales.

As a film, Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairytale has a certain charm to it, but it falls afoul of one major fault: at a running time of three hours, it's too long for the story it's telling. The life of Andersen is interesting, but it feels distinctly padded by the inclusion of a number of dramatized versions of his own fairy tales.

The conceit itself, of somehow representing Andersen's vivid life of the imagination by actually showing us the fairy tales as he imagines them, is not bad. However, the way it's handled falls flat. Taken on their own merits, only "The Little Mermaid" really works at all as a story in its own right, and even then the ending is missing. "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Nightingale" are very badly handled, coming across as hastily abridged versions of Andersen's stories rather than full-blooded dramatizations. A number of other fairy tales are at least partially dramatized in the film, and all generally have the effect of slowing the pace of the film and lessening the dramatic momentum of the main story.

I was surprised to note that the special effects are surprisingly cheesy; given the excellent special effects in Hallmark's Snow Queen only a year later (2002), I expected better here, but I was disappointed. On the bright side, the costumes and sets of 19th century Denmark and England are nicely done.

The DVD

Video

Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairytale is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, as it was originally broadcast on television. The picture is generally very attractive; most scenes are free of noise, and colors are consistently bright and vibrant. Some edge enhancement is present, and a few scenes show some grain, but on the whole it's a pleasing image.

Audio

A Dolby 5.1 soundtrack is included, along with the Dolby 2.0. The 2.0 is the default, but it's possible to select the 5.1 on the fly as well as from the menu. However, I have to say that there's nothing much about the 5.1 track to distinguish it from the 2.0; there's really no appreciable use of the surround sound, and the audio remains focused in the front speakers throughout the film. Apart from that, though, the sound is very good, with the dialogue clear and clean.

Extras

A five-minute promotional featurette is included, mainly composed of clips from the film along with a few snippets of interviews with the cast and crew. There is also a selection of trailers for other Hallmark productions, including Dinotopia and Snow White. While the back of the DVD case states that a photo gallery is included, this is incorrect; there is no photo gallery on the DVD.

The menus are rather hard to navigate, simply because the text for each selection is arranged in a half-circle. Menu designers, take note: the cutesy effect of curved menu text is more than counterbalanced by the frustration of having to read the thing (not to mention that it's difficult to tell which choice is selected).

Final thoughts

This rendition of the genuinely fascinating life of Hans Christian Andersen has some definite merits, and may be quite entertaining for younger viewers, provided that the lengthy film is watched in several parts. On the whole, its length prevents it from getting a higher rating, as the entertaining story of Andersen's own life is padded by the inclusion of awkwardly dramatized fairy tales, but I'd suggest it as a reasonable choice for those who are interested in the subject. Viewers who are interested in Andersen's fairy tales should also take a look at Hallmark's presentation of Snow Queen as well.