Christmas: The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)
If you are anything like me, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is one of the stories you know best. I’ve read the original novella a number of times, and Alastair Sim’s Scrooge (1951) and The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) have been fixtures in my holiday viewing for decades. This isn’t to say that Dickens’s classic and the major film adaptations have lost their appeal, but it does mean I welcome new windows onto the familiar tale. This is the main reason why I found The Man Who Invented Christmas delightful.
Susan Coyne’s screenplay is based on Les Standiford’s 2008 nonfiction book, The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. Directed by Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day), the movie relates how Dickens (played by Dan Stevens) wrote and published A Christmas Carol in six weeks leading up to the Christmas of 1843. While the film takes some liberties with the character and biography of Dickens, it’s still an effective window onto the world-famous author and the creation of his most enduring classic, as well as the world of 19th-century English publishing in general. More importantly, for the Christmas viewer, the movie is also a great reminder of how A Christmas Carol really did revive what had become a minor holiday in British Christianity and society, and how, in doing so, Dickens godfathered the modern incarnation of the holiday as a secularized, gifting- and family-focused holiday.
The Man Who Invented Christmas also functions as a biopic, particularly a story of “inspired creation.” What I mean is that the movie is, on one level, a typical “making-of” story, with the narrative arc of an artist having an idea, facing setbacks which must be surmounted, only to ultimately triumph with the achievement of the creation in question. The extra layer is that the film pays special intention to the inspirations behind the creation, more so than the action of crafting the work.
What really distinguishes the movie from a typical artist biopic is how the inspirations are conveyed through fantastical aspects. Dickens’s inspiration for A Christmas Carol comes through talks with the characters. He is particularly haunted by Scrooge (Christopher Plummer). But the movie also depicts bits of dialogue, characters, and events for A Christmas Carol all being suggested by real-life happenings: a person Dickens meets in the streets of London, a name he hears, as well as his own grim childhood working in a London factory while his father was in debtor’s prison. I’ve always found these kinds of “making-of” movies, perhaps best exemplified by Shakespeare in Love (1998), as a bit reductive. Although, obviously, life shapes artists and their art, artists don’t have to actually experience something personally to write about it (see the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, for example). But at the same time, these sorts of movies can be charming, especially for an audience especially fond of the material we are seeing being created.
The Man Who Invented Christmas is also something of a loose adaptation of the Scrooge story, with Dickens himself encountering apparitions in the process of healing some of the sore spots in his life. As with Scrooge and the ghosts, Dickens reencounters events from his early life, alters his relationships with the present, and dynamically changes his future —with revived commercial and critical success.
The character acting is rich and suitable for a period piece. Jonathan Pryce shows up as Dickens’s father. The apparitions are fun, walking the line between whimsy and absurdity pretty well. The best is Christopher Plummer’s Scrooge, which is one more performance by the great actor that is very welcome.
The humour is soft but usually charming. The drama is effective, except for the most sentimental moments. But remember: this is Dickens, and sentiment is the name of the game.
This won’t become a new fixture in my holiday viewing, but I will probably revisit it some Christmas down the road. Ultimately, I’m mostly grateful for the fresh perspectives it brings to a beloved Christmas classic, in terms of added context and in the form of a new telling.
7 out of 10
The Man Who Invented Christmas (Ireland/Canada, 2017)
Directed by Bharat Nalluri; screenplay by Susan Coyne, based on the book by Les Standiford; starring Dan Stevens, Jonathan Pryce, Morfydd Clark, Justin Edwards, and Christopher Plummer.