We're Scrooged (2023) -
This film took the Charles Dickens classic 'A Christmas Carol' and tweaked it so that both of the lead actors got to experience visits from the 3 "Ghosts" of his story at the same time. In between each visit they attended a school reunion to take advantage of old friendships with powerful people and got reacquainted with each other in the process.
I absolutely love Charlie's story so when I do come across one of these films, utilising the idea, I find that they are pretty divisive for me. Some of them use the trope well, but some of them just destroy the brilliance of Chuck's work. The only thing I can say about this one was that it was a different take on it.
As the film began it was obvious that Tamara Duarte as Sarah was definitely a Scrooge and certainly in need of an intervention by ghosts on Christmas Eve. What a b/tch! And I did feel that it was really hard to warm to her even after the effects of the spirits intervention started to take hold.
Scottie (Andrew Bushell) on the other hand seemed like a nice guy who needed to escape from all of these horrible women. He did not deserve to fall in with another one, because he already had a Boss who was bad enough. Suzanne Cyr in that role of Angelique was not a good actor unless she was told to play it like a panto villain.
One thing that I wasn't clear on was why the ghosts were visiting in the first place. In the original story Marley hopes to save Scrooge from the fate that befell him, to make Ebenezer a better man, whose business was the people not the counting house, but with this one it didn't really feel that it can have been for anything but Sarah's redemption, she needed Scott, not the other way around. And although they tried to cover that towards the end whilst with the "Ghost of Christmas Future" it was ultimately not about enriching other's lives, but just the two of them so it fell a bit flat. At least in 'Ghosts Of Christmas Always' (2022) they tried to explain that everyone's redemption was important. These two didn't really affect enough people's lives to contribute that much to society either way and certainly weren't set up to do much different afterwards.
As they went through the ghostly process each night I didn't think that their romance and reconnection was easy to buy. I wasn't rooting for them and I didn't think that they had any more familiarity than a Brother and Sister who had been estranged and not even that really.
I actually thought that Scott would have been better getting together with their old school friend Melissa (Deneisha Henry). Or even Pro Basketball Player Gareth (Nykeem Provo), with whom there was at least a chemistry to build on. Although if I'm honest I didn't find Andrew attractive or appealing enough as I usually do with most of the guys they have as leads in these films. I mean I'd do him, but I'd be thinking of Luke Macfarlane or Jesse Hutch (I'm so shallow. Maybe I need a visit from 3 ghosts to help me on a better path too?). He just didn't have enough of a presence.
So, it wasn't the worst I've ever seen and I'm not saying never again, but I really did feel that the two leads and some of the character direction were not the right choices.
Although there were other things that irked me too -
Adding a hip hop beat over the more traditional music doesn't make the film any cooler.
The two leads weren't young enough or made up to look young enough for the scenes set in the past.
And also, who has a reunion that close to Christmas and for longer than just one night? Who would be able to afford that? Or want to go so close to the festive season? What if the school bully was there and you ended up having to make Gingerbread houses with them all weekend?
Aside from that I wasn't sure that "The Ghost Of Christmas Present" should have been Virtual. The use of modern media was a good idea to get the points across and show that there was still a potential interest between both of them, but I wasn't sure that it needed such a literal AI translation.
And honestly I would have closed the Community Meet Up, whatever it was called, to build condos too. Why would the town want to keep a wasted space like that to only use it for 6 weeks a year!?? Just move whatever it actually was to a hotel function room or church hall for God's sake! And the stupid thing was, if they hadn't said that it was only used for a month and a half, which wasn't necessary to the plot, the idea of closing a regularly used centre would have seemed more terrible and fit the story better.
By the end of the film I still didn't think that Sarah seemed to have grown much and I felt that Scott was just going through the motions without much heart behind what he was saying.
This really was a less than middling effort made only quasi successful thanks to Dickens original concept and having got to the end of this review and from rereading these notes, I'm not sure that I would watch it again actually. I lowered my score 3 times.
4.24/10.
