When doing a movie marathon like this, inevitably people will suggest movies like The Muppet Christmas Carol or Scrooged, which are perfectly good suggestions, but as those are both creative adaptations of the Dickens novel, it behooved me to see a more traditional retelling first so that I can compare.
And this was definitely a serious adaptation.
I've used the term cartoonishly evil a few times already on this blog, to the point where it was starting to become a theme, and this story seems to be the origin of that Christmas trope with its character, Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is a covetous, penny-pinching, crotchety old man who runs a money-lending business. His former partner, Marley, died on Christmas Eve seven years prior. Examples of his douchebaggery include not adding even one additional coal to the fire because that costs money, even though his employees are freezing, as well as refusing to give any money to charity or carolers.
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" he says in response to who will help the needy young. Basically, in Scrooge's mind all the urchins should be rounded up and either put in prison or sent to a factory that would be illegal by today's child labor laws. Like it's almost a joke how much of a dick he is, but he needs to be for his character arc.
Anyway, it's Christmas eve, he's declined his nephew's (played by McNulty from the Wire!) invitation to join his family for Christmas dinner and complained about his employee Bob Cratchit requesting Christmas day off because no one will be coming in anyway. Upon arriving home and dressing like a stereotypical old timey man, he is visited by the ghost of Marley who warns that his shitty ways will catch up to him if he doesn't change and he'll be visited by three ghosts to really hammer in that fact.
And just in case you've never read, scene, or even heard of A Christmas Carol, those three ghosts are the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. And these guys are pretty self explanatory, but I will discuss them briefly anyway.
GC-Past appears as an albino elf, more or less, and takes Scrooge on a journey through his past. First seeing his boyhood years at boarding school, where he often wouldn't go home for Christmas, that is until his sister personally comes to get him. The sister is McNulty's mom, who has passed in the current timeline. Fast forward a little to his young adulthood at his first job. Although this place had very strict rules, they still shut down for a festive Christmas party. Here he meets a nice lady with whom he has a pretty serious relationship, but in the final flashback, we see the two split. Reliving these painful memories is starting to get to Scrooge.
GC-Present is a large, lumbering man who goes about sprinkling Christmas magic on people. In addition to showing Scrooge all the people around the world currently celebrating, he brings the old codger to two of his acquaintances' houses. First, we see Bob Cratchit and his insanely large number of children, the youngest of whom is an invalid boy named Tiny Tim. Scrooge didn't know any of this and seems to show some empathy for the boy and his family. He sees how happy they are with very little simply because they have each other. Bob even wants to give a toast to Scrooge, but his wife questions why they'd toast to the health of such a douche. The ghost tells Scrooge that if this progress the way the are going, Tim will die soon. We also see McNulty's party, where again people are happy simply being together and also take time out of their conversation to bash on Scrooge and his humbug-ness. I guess Scrooge never realized that people think he's a dick until witnessing it himself.
And finally, GC-Future shows up, appearing as a tall shadowy dildo with glowing yellow eyes. This ghost doesn't do any talking, just points and let the visions do all the work. Basically, Scrooge sees a number of people talking about the death of someone that no one seems to care about, then he witnesses several people selling stolen goods from the recently deceased. In the final vision, Scrooge sees his own grave and realizes that he was obviously the guy everyone was talking shit about. He pleads that he will change, that he will not be such an overly-frugal dickhead, but falls into the coffin with his own corpse and then wakes up in his own bed on Christmas morning.
It's not too late! And he has really changed! He tells a street urchin to go buy a giant turkey and send it to the Cratchits. He also visits McNulty and joins the party. And finally goes to church and sings with the congregation, completely showing his transformation into not a huge douchebag.
Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 5 out of 10 hugs
No comments:
Post a Comment