Ti West captures both the horrors and the heart of the legendary Charles Dickens story, and if Johnny Depp doesn’t enter the pantheon of the great Scrooges, neither does he embarrass himself.
Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol is the most-adapted work of English-language literature for a reason: it’s a heartwarming tale of regret and redemption wrapped up in a Victorian ghost story. (During that historical moment, it was thought that Christmas Eve was the night when the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest.) With his horror background, director Ti West (MaXXXine) revels in the story’s horrifying specters and otherworldly spirits, but he and screenwriter Nathaniel Halpern (a TV vet making his feature debut) also nail the Dickensian sentimentality and good cheer.
Adaptations of A Christmas Carol generally live or die by their Ebenezer Scrooge, and thankfully Johnny Depp does less mugging than one might expect, based on the last 20 or 30 years of his film career. It’s a more than adequate turn in a legendary role, but given the indelible impressions made by the likes of Alastair Sim, Albert Finney, George C. Scott, and Michael Caine — to say nothing of Vanessa Williams, Susan Lucci or Bill Murray — Depp’s work here is entertaining but never a Scrooge for the ages.
The plot and characters of Dickens’ tale are baked into our collective DNA, so it’s impressive when Halpern occasionally goes off-book, and more so when those digressions lead to emotionally effective moments. The fact that the film opens with a prologue featuring a still-living Jacob Marley not only lays down essential groundwork for the story to come but also lets audiences revel in a little more screen time for Ian McKellen’s delicious wickedness before he becomes the gloomy ghost who warns Scrooge about what lies ahead this Christmas night. (For all the film’s diversions from the source material, this is the first adaptation in recent memory that breaks the tale into “Staves,” just like Dickens did.)
While many a film and TV Christmas Carol fails at atmosphere, presenting a London that seems to be two blocks long or illuminating it with Southern California sunshine, cinematographer Checco Varese (It: Chapter Two) smothers the town in sinister fog, the better to make the hearths of Scrooge’s nephew Fred (Sam Claflin) or the humble home of Bob Cratchit (Rupert Grint) all the more inviting. Production designer Eve Stewart (Nuremberg), set decorator Michael Standish (The Family Plan 2), and the art department supervised by Ashley Lamont (3 Body Problem) give us a London where want is keenly felt (by the city’s impoverished citizens) and abundance rejoices (inside the posh manor houses).
Casting director Olivia Grant (Goodbye June) has assembled an impressive ensemble from stem to stern; this may be Scrooge’s story, but the sentiment really lands thanks to Claflin and Daisy Ridley (as Fred’s “penniless” wife Clara”), and particularly Ellie Bamber (Red, White & Royal Blue) and Arthur Conti (Prime Video’s Carrie) as Belle and young Ebenezer. Andrea Riseborough and Trammell Tillman, as the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, respectively, get to play somewhat creepier versions of these spirits (Riseborough’s eyes are entirely white) than other versions while still hitting the necessary emotional marks. Dickens aficionados will appreciate that this is one of those adaptations where Christmas Present’s segment ends with the introduction of Ignorance and Want.
Ebenezer has been wildly mismarketed, from its original posters (which promised some new backstory for the central character) to the trailers, which accentuated fleeting moments of bawdiness and scatology. In the final analysis, this isn’t a Christmas Carol that changes the Christmas Carol game in any significant way, but it’s nonetheless a solid adaptation that does what it’s supposed to do, down to an effectively moving but not manipulative Tiny Tim (Freddie Lee-Grey). Like its protagonist, it knows how to keep Christmas well.
