Scrooged

A more cynical telling of A Christmas Carol

Director: Richard Donner
Writers: Mitch Glazer
                Michael O'Donoghue
Runtime: 1hr 41 minutes

Plot: A TV Exec, who lives a parrallelI(ish) life to Ebenezer Scrooge, goes through a similar experience with the three ghosts.

I really like this movie. It's dark, it's funny, it's Bill Murray, it's a Dickens classic all dressed up for the modern world, it's just good. I don't know how else to praise it except for going into it so...here we go.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. There is a moment towards the end of the Ghost Of Christmas Present segment, where Frank (Murray) has come back after his experience with the Ghost of Christmas Past and is on his way down to see how the rehearsals are going for his show. This isn't just any rehearsal mind, it's the final dress rehearsal for a live TV performance. That's a stressful rehearsal, it's got to be perfect so that the people behind the scenes can feel comfortable that what they're putting out there is good. Now then, before Frank comes into the scene, we see how the rehearsal starts off. First with the words "Last dress rehearsal guys", then with the man playing Scrooge getting stuck on one of his lines and breaking character. BIG ol' no no. Don't do that in your last dress rehearsal. What happens after this? The cast is rewarded with an hours lunch. When this happened I just paused the film for a moment and thought "is this real life?" Is this really what writers think final dress rehearsals are? You fuck up a line and you get an hours break? No honey. In my experience with final dress rehearsals (I've not done any for TV but I've done for stage), you get your lunch when the final rehearsal is done. You mess up a line, you carry the hell on, you don't get lunch 'til your final run through is done. I don't know if they did things like this in the 80's but...I don't know, it just sounds weird to be that laid back.

Looking back on my notes, that's the only negative thing I wrote down worth making a point of, the rest are just easy jokes and aren't even that bad.

With that said, onto the good stuff, which amazingly, also has very few notes.

First good thing, the transitions between Frank and the ghosts in wherever they are and then Frank back in the real world are really good. They flow really well with the final moment of the previous scene and the start of the current one which...transitions should do really, but here they're almost flawless. Almost, because nothing is perfect, even in 80's Christmas.

Another cool thing is that the names aren't the same as the classic characters and I can think of two immediate reasons why. One, because in this universe, the story of A Christmas Carol already exists, it'd be a little too obvious to have your main character, who loves an almsot parrallel life to Scrooge, be named something similar. It's just easier to go with the classic Frank than...Edward or something. The other reason, so that you can separate this version from A Christmas Carol. Don't get me wrong, this is still a variation of the classic story, however, it's a very cynical version of the story and, honestly, I don't know how dark the original material is but everyone sees this as a warm story in which a man sees the error of his ways and comes to love Christmas as a time for Joy. This film kind of goes the same route, just not as family friendly, even with Bill Murray leading it. There are sex jokes, there are jokes about the temper of the Ghost of Christmas Present, there's a man holding a gun on an entire room to help Frank reinforce the ideals of Christmas. It's great.

Finally, I want to talk about the ghosts. They're not the classic versions of themselves and that's good, helps the film get more of its own identity rather than someone just going "oh the past ghost is a calm and patient being" "oh the present ghost is someone who just adores christmas" "well well well would ya look at that, the Ghost of Christmas future is dressed like death". The ghosts in this film seem to reflect Frank's experiences with people in the time periods he sees them in.

The first ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen) is a very rough, New York taxi driver, in a reflection of his childhood and his father. His father was a dick and if you disregard the jokes about a 4 year old being unable to get a job...

Franks mother: Earl, he's only 4 years old
Franks father: All day long, I listen to people give excuses why they can't work. "My back hurts" "my legs ache" "I'm only 4"

This guy's a real dick, just how many people would see a New York taxi driver, looking the way he does, that's what you assume of him.

The next ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Present is hilarious in her representation. She represents the idea of Christmas hitting you in the face with it's happiness and love and joy and I know that happiness and joy are basically the same thing but she's just double happy. I wrote down in my notes that she was the "Ghost of Christmas abuse" which...really, Christmas is pretty abusive. Don't get me wrong, I was listening to Jingle Bell Rock back in August, I love Christmas, but the second it turns 00:00 on November first, Christmas is everywhere it gets fucking exhausting. There's just so much of it everywhere and it can feel like if you try to escape it, you get a slap from all the decorations or marketing people.

Finally, there's the ghost of Christmas Future. There's a scene after Frank gets dropped by the Ghost of Christmas Present and he almost immediately sees the costume of the Ghost of Christmas Future for the live show and has a bit of a breakdown, more than he already is. Which then transitions into him going into the elevator and coming across the actual ghost, who is dressed in a similar way. The costuming looks cheap but I promise it isn't. It's actually pretty clever, he's literally just seen something that scared him and because the future is uncertain, and the Ghost of Christmas Future is generally ambiguous due to the fact of it being uncertain. This being took the form that scared him the most and decided to take that form and run with it, scare the hell out of him and do what needs to be done.

That last paragraph felt like it should have been in an English exam, wow. Anyway, I really like this film, it's funny enough and dark enough for me to want to watch it again, probably if nothing else is on or if I'm just lounging about and bored. That does happen a lot though. So I'll probably watch this a lot over the next week or so.

Anyway, that's it for today, should get on it, it's on Netflix for now, I guess it will probably stop being on there after the Christmas period so go on. Peace out, stay hydrated kids. Have fun, love you. Bye.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then go and support its creators by buying the DVD or Bluray.