Jesper (Jason Schwartzman), the spoiled descendant of a politically powerful family. We first meet him as he's lounging at the Postal Academy in a vaguely defined European country, figuring he can slack off until he gets passed through and pushed into the world, where he'll coast on family money and connections. Instead, as a last-ditch effort to make him care about, well, anything, the academy assigns Jesper to the remote island town of Smeerensburg, which hasn't sent or received mail in years, plus is in the midst of a clannish civil war wherein citizens destroy each other's property in wild, ridiculous ways that seem to ensure his failure. But wait! Just as all seems lost, Jesper meets a burly, bearded craftsman (J.K. Simmons) in a remote stretch of woods, and the origin story begins. Klaus is a quiet, frighteningly strong-looking hulk—initially presented as a monster, his face obscured or hidden— but he's a gentle soul and a gifted artist. Even though you can see where his story is going to end up (with the establishment of a toy factory and the acceptance of a mission), it's still pleasurable to watch him and Jesper build a bond that connects both of them to a world that they'd both held at arm's length, though for different reasons.
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