IMDb summary: The journey that led to Charles Dickens’ creation of “A Christmas Carol,” a timeless tale that would redefine the holiday.
The Man Who Invented Christmas‘ script was written by Susan Coyne (a Canadian playwright and TV writer), based on a historical non-fiction book with the same name by Les Standiford. Even though the screenplay was based on historical fact, I still question the accuracy of the film’s narrative, as the cinematic adaptations of biographies tend to usually strive for an entertaining rather than truthful story. And this movie’s narrative was certainly compelling, mostly due to its content but also structure.
The Man Who Invented Christmas told (though great dialogues, I might add) the behind-the-scenes story of the creation of one of the most beloved novellas for readers of all ages – Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. I do particularly remember reading the book as a child while laying down in bed with a cold during winter. Seeing this film made me want to definitely reread the book this winter. I would probably understand it in a completely different way now, not only because I watched this film but also because I just studied Charles Dickens’ other works, last of which I read and researched only last month – Great Expectations.
If the movie is to be believed, a lot of different elements from Dickens‘ life acted as the inspiration for the novella. One of the elements was Dickens’s struggles with the concept of class: the class divide and the class consciousness. He was known as ‘the writer of the people’ and yet, he was very much part of the upper/middle class. However, he had experienced lower class life as a child in a workhouse and those experiences haunted him the rest of his life. Dickens‘ father’s belief that he belonged to a higher class even if he had no funds to back up his membership also influenced the writer. The portrayal of the competitive literary scene of the 19th century Britain also acted as a neat realistic background for the story.
As much as I have enjoyed the content of the narrative, I also really loved its structure (a.k.a. how the inspiration behind A Christmas Carol was portrayed in the film). I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Dickens interact with his characters and move around his version of London in the story. It was as if the magical atmosphere of the book was transferred to its behind the scenes story. I loved seeing the parallels between Dickens and Scrooge too and liked the idea that both of them needed to learn to open themselves up to the world and see the hopeful side of it. It looks like writing was a form of therapy for Dickens. Lastly, I absolutely adored the picture’s message about the importance and the usefulness of imagination and storytelling.
The Man Who Invented Christmas was directed by Bharat Nalluri and this was the first film of his that I have seen. I thought that he did a stellar job. I loved the fairytale-like atmosphere of the film – the said aura made the movie more than just a biographical drama. The pacing was quite good too. The cinematography (by Ben Smithard) was good and varied as well, while the orchestral soundtrack (by Mychael Danna) was grand and emotional. Lastly, the narrative’s sentimental message and a heart-warming conclusion were brought to life in an excellent manner. My favorite scene of the movie that just epitomized all that was great about it was Stevens as Dickens looking at the first published copy of his new book and getting emotional about it. That single scene underscored both the hardships and the joys of creativity as Stevens‘ character seemed both relieved and excited.
Dan Stevens starred as Charles Dickens and did a great job. His performance was quite theatrical, which really fit the fairytale aura of the film (but would have been odd in a more realistic setting). Stevens seems to have a hard time escaping historical roles – he was just the Beast in 18th century France (Beauty and the Beast) and, of course, who can forget the beginning of his career and Cousin Matthew on Downton Abbey? If you want to see him in more contemporary roles, The Guest and Legion are both excellent (even though Legion is maybe set in the past – the visual style of that series makes it really hard to pinpoint its time period).
The supporting cast of the movie was full of great talent. Christopher Plummer was just amazing as Scrooge (I should not be surprised at how great he was after looking at his IMDb: he is, basically, the cinema royalty, and was even in The Sound of Music all those decades ago). Jonathan Pryce was also quite good as Dickens’s father. On the female character side, the movie didn’t have much (it was set in the 19th century, are you even surprised at the lack of female leads?). Having said that, it did attempt to do something with Dickens’ wife, played by Ger Ryan (she mentioned something about wanting an adventure of her own – not an idea that a woman would have had in the 19th century but definitely would have had nowadays) and Anna Murphy as Tara (an Irish housemaid, whose tales kickstarted the writing process of A Christmas Carol).
In short, The Man Who Invented Christmas was a unique biographical drama with a lovely message and a touch of theatricality.