Ellie Ellie and her brother Tom listen as their grandmother reads a story about the powerful and evil The Snow Queen. Their younger sister Polly quietly asks if she can join, but Tom mutters that the Queen exists only in the tale. Yet the menace turns out to be real: the Snow Queen dwells in an icy palace in the North Pole, accompanied by three troll servants—Eric, Baggy, and Wardrobe. Her plan is colossal and chilling, aiming to install a monumental magic mirror on a distant mountain to reflect sunlight away and crown the world as her frozen domain. When the mirror tumbles down the mountain and shatters, two shards strike Tom in the eye and the heart, infecting him with a darkness that saps his warmth and spirit.
The Snow Queen dispatches bats to fetch the shards. When they realize they cannot reach the two pieces embedded in Tom, she ventures out herself to abduct him. Ellie and Tom hitch their sleds to a larger one that is revealed to be driven by the Queen, and Tom is carried away to her palace. Ellie is cast aside, falling onto a talking sparrow named Peeps. With a mix of resolve and fear, Ellie vows to rescue Tom, and Peeps reluctantly agrees to accompany her. In a snowy forest, they stumble upon a house belonging to an old woman who seems kind but is in fact a sly witch intent on harvesting Ellie’s heart for an elixir of life, granting perpetual youth. Peeps outsmart a cat named Cuddles to cause a distraction, and uses the chaos to unlock Ellie from a cage. They escape and trap the witch and her cat in the basement by sealing the trapdoor with a box, narrowly outrunning their pursuers.
Soon they meet two humanoid ravens, Les and Ivy. Ivy, hearing Ellie’s account of Tom, tells her that Tom plans to marry a Princess, which leads Ellie to slip into the Princess’s service to serve her meals. But the plan’s surface fragility becomes clear when Ellie discovers the Prince is not Tom. Meanwhile, Tom is back with the Snow Queen, recommissioning the mirror with his puzzle skills. The Queen schemes to kill him to recover the final two pieces; she seals his fate with a kiss that sends him into a hypnotic trance while icy veins creep toward his heart.
The Princess and Prince provide Ellie and Peeps with a royal vehicle to reach the Snow Queen’s realm, but they collide with a band of humanoid rats led by the Robber King. The Robber King vouches that Ellie can become Angorra’s servant, but his promises shift as plans unfold. Ellie is shut inside a room with Dimly, a flying reindeer captured by the robbers, while Peeps frees her by undoing Dimly’s restraints. Angorra enters, but they trap her with a barrel; Dimly pulls them away, and the Robber King’s grip on the rope falters, sending him crashing into a building and ending his hold on Angorra.
Seeking help, Dimly goes to flying-reindeer school and consults Freda, an elder Lapland woman who runs the school. Freda and Dimly guide Ellie and Peeps to the Snow Queen’s castle, and she, along with the three trolls—Eric, Baggy, and Wardrobe—decide to aid them. Tom’s remaining time is running out; Freda reveals that the two pieces inside him will finish him off unless a beam of hope is found. She crafts a potion to dissolve the mirror, urging Ellie to have Tom drink it. Just as the moment arrives, the Snow Queen blasts the vial away with her staff. A fierce battle erupts: she freezes Eric and Freda, and Baggy and Wardrobe seize her staff just as they themselves succumb to the cold. The struggle culminates when the vial finally spills onto the shattered mirror, dissolving it and triggering an icy cyclone that pursues the Snow Queen’s flying carriage, freezing her solid as she attempts to escape. The shards inside Tom dissolve, the Queen’s kiss loses its power, and Tom is freed. Freda and the trolls are unfrozen.
Freda cautions that the Snow Queen is not truly destroyed and will return someday. Dimly escorts Ellie, Tom, and Peeps back to their village, while Freda and the trolls remain behind to stand guard for what comes next. Dimly then crash-lands in the village, and the trio heads inside to finish the tale, as Dimly heads back toward the Queen’s palace. The film closes with a close-up of the frozen Queen’s eyes, pulsing with a ominous, lingering light that hints at a future threat.
