This is an incredibly biased review, as I expect most reviews of Holiday Classics would tend to be. This is a film I grew up with and, thus, no other version of a Christmas Carol will do, at least for me.
I remember watching this movie every year, sometimes more than once. Even as I prepared to write this review I thought, 'I don't really need to watch it again but I probably should just so that it is fresh in my mind. When I popped the DVD in I was instantly transported into the Christmas season, which up until that moment, even after hanging lights, decorating the rooms of our house, and visiting my Grandparents for Thanksgiving, I simply had not felt like it was Christmas yet.
But those bells that play and the frosty blue and white painted credits title cards ushered in the Christmas spirit into my winter season as surely as a visit from Jacob Marley's ghost.
While I may be biased, I do truly believe this is the best adaptation of Charles Dickens' story that has ever been made. I doubt this review will change your mind about your favorite but I do hope it will at least prompt you to try this one out as, perhaps, an addition to your Holiday-time Queue.
I'm going to begin with Scrooge, our titular character, played by Albert Finney ("Big Fish," 2003). If there's been a more truly cantankerous, tragically calloused, monetarily focused, hilariously oblivious, and joyfully redeemed version of this character, I'll eat my hat, coat, and winter boots alongside my Christmas goose and pudding. Watching other versions, the actor playing scrooge always seems to be performing the part of Scrooge as if they are in a TV special (sometimes they are) and their real job is to make sure they get out every iconic line from the story. Finney, on the other hand, doesn't just run through his lines in an 'already prepared' fashion. The lines seem to come from deep in his hard heart. He's always fussing around as if he can't even sit still during his conversations, subtly communicating how little stock he places in humanity. Scrooge feels like a real person in this version, not just a story book character come to life with a funny voice, although he does have one, and a cartoonish grimace on his face (such as Jim Carrey in "Disney's A Christmas Carol").
Another wonderful aspect "Scrooge" is the music. A Christmas Carol is no stranger to musical adaptations and while I give credit to quite a few of the songs in "A Muppet Christmas Carol" for being fun, Christmas-y, and often hilarious, they simply don't hold a candle to the musical sequences in "Scrooge." This is in part because the songs are simply better, in my opinion, feeling more like a stage musical's words and score, but also because the sequences, and indeed the entire film, actually takes advantage of the fact that it is a film and not just a TV special.
The scenes where Scrooge is just standing there and singing are few and are actually motivated by the scenes and communicate something about Scrooge and who he is willing to sit and listen to and who he isn't. The first musical number features three songs "Christmas Children," "I Hate People," and "Father Christmas" is frenetically paced as Scrooge attempts to slip away from the mocking song that the street urchins sing, even as he goes about London, collecting on debts, even on Christmas Eve. This is contrasted with Bob Cratchit who meets two of his children after work, walks them home collecting items for their celebration, and marveling at the magic of Christmas on the London Streets.
Of course this is all helped by some of the best production design I have ever seen in a movie, let alone a Christmas movie. London feels large, with little neighborhoods and districts not because we get some CGI flyover but because the streets of London aren't just a single cross street set and an alley that the Cratchits live on. We wander all over the streets of London and when we do go inside, Scrooge's office, The Cratchits one room home, and Scrooge's chambers all feel so real and lived in that they themselves communicate the state of their occupiers souls: the Cratchit house full of bustling family and light; Scrooge's home full of old dingy heavy and dark drapes, starkly furnished, and kept as dirty and barely kept as Scrooge's disgusting fingernails..
This brings up the last thing I'll mention; Light. This film actually uses light as a tool for storytelling, beginning the night before Christmas where Scrooge lives with an eternally dark heart as black as the sky and ending with Christmas morning shining bright as Scrooge literally runs around like a schoolboy (he doesn't just say it then continue to walk around like an old man as in "Muppet Christmas Carol"). This isn't the only example of how light is used to communicate generosity and the spirit of Christmas in the film but I will leave those to you to discover on your own.
This is one of those movies that appeals to me on almost every level. The acting is great, the music is fun, and it actually feels like I am watching a movie that the director was thinking more about how to communicate the feeling of a hard-hearted man being redeemed than he was thinking about how to achieve a special effect or make an exact copy of every scene from the book. I find myself spontaneously singing the songs from this film all year round and there are few things that bring my soul the sort of satisfaction that this film does as it ends with Scrooge lavishing his riches upon the town and walking back home all by himself, still singing under his breath and skipping as he does.
May we all find and share that kind of joy this holiday season.
