A Series of Dickensian Events

It's the 175th anniversary of Charles Dickens' famous novella A Christmas Carol so naturally it seems the ideal time to review two of the most recent movies to be inspired by that classic tale.

First off there's Robert Zemeckis's 2009 animated film A Christmas Carol, which basically stars Jim Carrey in a multitude of roles (including the starring role of Ebenezer Scrooge). As far as Dickensian remakes go, I've seen better and I've seen worse. (I'm looking at you, An American Carol, when I say "worse", by the way.) For the most part, I found it relatively pain-free as long as it stuck to the original dialogue of the Dickens book. However, the moment Zemeckis tried to improve on it, the results were not that great. (For example, did we really need to see a mouse-sized Scrooge?)

On the plus side, the animation was good -- though surprisingly bright for what after all is a Christmas ghost story to end all Christmas ghost stories. And it didn't hurt that Zemeckis's version was one of the few versions of A Christmas Carol I can remember that mentioned both Scrooge's sister Fan and his ex-girlfriend Belle. (Granted, Dickens himself didn't give them much space in the original book but all too many versions of A Christmas Carol leave them out altogether.)

Much of the movie was predictable -- and not just because it was based on a book almost everyone had to read in school. (For example, anyone not acquainted with the novel who couldn't guess the obvious connection between the fate of Scrooge's only sibling and his dislike of his sole nephew either hadn't seen a lot of movies or else wasn't really trying.) Moreover, online complaints about how dark the movie was for a children's movie seemed odd to me, if for no other reason that the various versions of A Christmas Carol that I've seen over the years -- most of which were aimed at children as well -- have always been dark. And I first became acquainted with this story when I was still in grade school.

That said, I can think of many animated versions of A Christmas Carol that I like far better -- though I will give Zemeckis and Carrey credit for giving us the first version I've ever seen in which the Ghost of Christmas Past spoke with an Irish accent.

I'm not sure how literally to take the title of the 2017 movie The Man Who Invented Christmas and it's probably just as well I didn't. Like all too many movies based on the lives of famous people, this movie was perhaps best viewed as alternative history.

If screenwriter Susan Coyne and director Bharat Nalluri had anything original to say about Dickens and his famous novella, it certainly didn't show up on screen. But what they did put up there proved to be watchable as long as you don't mistake it for a documentary.

Part of the problem with the movie was that anyone who knew enough about Dickens to get more than half the jokes also knew enough to predict the ending -- including the obligatory surprise plot twist. Moreover, some characters seemed more contrived than others. Granted, I still have a soft spot for Tara the Imaginary Irish Maid whose obvious purpose was to inspire Dickens to write his famous novella and give him advice along the way to its completion -- no doubt playing her part in the old Irish literary tradition of inspiring other writers. But I would have liked it better if she had not seemed to be such an obviously fictional character.

Oh, well. They obviously didn't make this movie for me. But in the wake of Great Depression II, it would have been nice if they had made it for someone who wasn't nostalgic for the days of good old Queen Vic.