The Man Who Invented Christmas

I really wanted to watch The Man Who Invented Christmas in 2017. So badly, but the film never made the rounds down here in Southeastern US. It was released in a limited run and I don’t remember seeing it available at any available stores, although it is possible I just missed it when it was out for purchase. But it was worth the wait. I’m afraid this little film will perhaps never quite garner the attention I think it rightfully deserved. Well, I just thought it was a delight. Plummer as Scrooge was just a dream to me. I watched just last night Patrick Stewart, again, in the TNT ’99 version, and when it was announced that Plummer was in the The Man Who Invented Christmas I couldn’t help think of what differences he would bring to the miser that perhaps hadn’t been brought to life by the likes of Alistair Sim and Reginald Owen or even Albert Finney. What director Bharat Nalluri and actor Dan Stevens (as Charles Dickens) accomplish is quite extraordinary even if the critical and audience results tend to dictate this film was just an average, mixed feelings after watching it.

I can only speak for myself but I truly thought Nalluri and Susan Coyne’s script giving us a unique storytelling presentation by having the characters (including Plummer’s Scrooge, with Justin Edwards, who is also Dickens friend, as Christmas Present, and Donald Sumpter, a lawyer and debt collector, as Marley) actually coming to life as Dickens is crafting and creating A Christmas Carol, given six weeks to get it out before Christmas, stuck on the ending as folks like, Tara (Anna Murphy), the maid, and his best friend and confidante, Forster (Edwards), refuse to accept the ending with Tiny Tim’s death and Scrooge never helping the sick boy, is just so clever, inventive, and profound. Not to mention, there is humor and enlightenment as Dickens realizes his own parallels to Scrooge, his inability to forgive his needy, attached father (Pryce, especially well cast) for going to a debtor’s prison resulting in his own bad experiences in a boot blacking factory (before there were child labour laws), frustratingly unwilling to grant redemption and clemency to Scrooge, emotionally volatile lashing out at his father and maid while in the throes of writer’s block, the harried experiences of convincing an artist to portrait ghosts as “merry” not ghoulish for the book, contending with his father’s interruptions and reckless money spending (and a raven’s fluttering about in the house, damaging a chandelier), juggling family life and the characters that emerge when putting together the book, and a literary critic (and author) at a café always around to annoy him.

 But I think the film is at its best when Dickens is in and out of the story as Scrooge continues to pop up, often to point out his own issues, struggles, and difficulties. Also, fans of the book and its numerous adaptations should get a kick out of everyday people that inspire Dickens’ novel, like an aging waiter with withering countenance, a pompous wealthy businessman who thinks he shouldn’t feature the poor and lowly so highly in his novels, the lawyer with his chains and safe demanding great interest in further loan provision, the maid with her grandmother’s stories about ghosts on Christmas Eve, among others. Seeing classic excerpts from the novel come to life as Dickens builds upon the story to its conclusion could be quite special to those who just love A Christmas Carol. I know I did. 

With Morfydd Clark as Charles’ wife, always trying to keep him level-headed while reminding him of the man he really is when he sets off into imagination, so immersed in the work that he sometimes fails to realize what is going on around him, Ian McNeice (Fezziwig in the ’99 Patrick Stewart version) as one of publishers who is wary about a novel involving Christmas so much, Katie McGuinness and Marcus Lamb as the Cratchits (also people he knows in life), Miles Jupp as the snobby, haughty literary critic (Thackery), and Ger Ryan as Charles’ mom, always excusing her husband’s spending habits and tolerant of their dependence on their son for financial help. The 1843 London setting—well, the Penny Dreadful sets were available, so why not use them?—is convincing and the back story of Dickens, thanks to Dan Stevens, who has a roller coaster of emotions to convey (and his nuance is quite impeccable) and depressing conditions that add gravitas to the scenes involving Scrooge asking the charity seekers if there are no workhouses, sheds light on just why the author was keen on basing characters of certain lowly means as key figures in his works.

This was a wonderful surprise this holiday season. I’ve already watched several Christmas Carol adaptations and I think I timed this viewing just right. 4/5