A Christmas Carol

Posted on: 13th November 2009  |

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Jim Carrey, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Gary Oldman
UK Release date: 4 November 2009
Certificate: PG (96 mins)

It’s years since I read Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Decades in fact. Yet there is something both fresh and familiar about the story. So when I sat down in the cinema to watch the new 3D animated production from Disney, it was almost like visiting an old friend.

I always get a little apprehensive when I read that a film is ‘based on’ something. On too many occasions, that has seemed to me to be a license to take a well-known tale and simply use it as the foundations for a similar story that, by the end, bears little resemblance to the original. This, I’m pleased to say, is not the case with A Christmas Carol. All the core ingredients are there: the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, the Cratchit family, Jacob Marley and, of course, the three Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. The feel of the era is faithfully recreated too, with dazzling effect. The flights we take over the rooftops of Victorian London (somewhat reminiscent of the final scene of Moulin Rouge) are breathtaking and feel incredibly authentic. And even some of the dialogue is, I am sure, lifted directly from Dickens’s own text, to the extent that some, especially younger viewers, might find it stilted and archaic. But overall, for those who feared that this might lose the authenticity of the original, don’t worry. It is, by and large, faithful to the story generations have read and loved.

Technically, too, Robert Zemeckis’ new version of A Christmas Carol is most impressive. It was the first time I’d sat through an entire film shot in 3D, wearing my goggles, and I have to say the effects were terrific. On a couple of occasions, I even tried to sweep the snowflakes away from my face! The human graphics were amazing too, especially Scrooge himself. Surprisingly, given the wacky characters he normally plays, Jim Carrey ‘the actor’ was somewhat subdued. If you’d asked me to identify the voice of Scrooge, I really wouldn’t have thought it was Carrey. Perhaps beneath that outrageous exterior there is a classical actor straining to get out.

So, Zemeckis’ production is a technical success and it is faithful to Dickens’s original, on the whole. There are some bizarre and inexplicable omissions. After his ‘conversion’, for example, Scrooge buys the prize turkey, but there is no suggestion that he gave it to the Cratchits! That apart, Zemeckis has produced a film that is heart-warming, spiritually uplifting and rich in morals. The Christian message of Christmas is smattered throughout the story: the scabbard with no sword at Christmas Present’s side represents ‘peace on earth and goodwill to all’; the season is a time for selflessness and generosity for those who are less well off than ourselves; the transformation that the birth of Christ can bring to humanity, with the lame walking and the hungry being fed. And ultimately, of course, the bitter, twisted and selfish Ebenezer Scrooge experiences conversion and becomes a reformed man. It is clearly love of money that has taken the joy and humanity out of him in the first place; by the end of the film, he has rediscovered the party spirit and joviality of his youth.

The one question I was left with at the end of A Christmas Carol was: why? Why did Disney/Robert Zemeckis choose to make it? Did it add anything new or extraordinary to the rows of previous productions of Charles Dickens’s classic novel? Well, yes: it added 3D animation and a pot full of special effects. But to be honest, that was about it. Some sections dragged and felt awfully slow; sometimes there was just too much concentration on the character of Scrooge and too many questions left unanswered on the sidelines (like why his marriage failed); and I found myself hankering for the original splendour of a classic production of A Christmas Carol with actors like Ralph Richardson (1951), Alastair Sim (1951 and 1971) or Albert Finney (1970).

Certainly, this new film version of A Christmas Carol may well inspire youngsters to read the original novel and might even remind them of what Christmas is all about, but it’s hardly a classic.

Oh – and by the way – a little tip: when you leave the cinema, please remember to remove your 3D goggles. Unlike me, who got some very funny looks when I stepped outside onto the pavement.



Ged Clapson



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