Scrooge A Christmas Carol: When Did Scrooge Become Cute?

By John Kirk

Rating: C+

I can never resist watching a version of the immortal Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol.

Maybe I’m a soul in need of redemption myself, but I think it’s more because I played Scrooge in a high school production one Christmas. I learned a lot getting into the character of Scrooge. It was work well worth the struggle and, immodestly, I think it was regarded kindly.

But when watching this film, I had to ask: just when did Scrooge’s story become cute?

There have been a number of versions that upped the cute factor about this story of redemption. There was the 1962 Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, the 1970 Scrooge, Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1983 and the 1992 The Muppets’ Christmas Carol. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of “cute Scrooge,” so do we really need another?

For me, the classic cinematic re-telling of this favourite Christmas story will always be the 1951 Scrooge (a.k.a. A Christmas Carol to foreign viewers) featuring Alistair Sim. I might be brandishing my British heritage too much with that declaration, but for me, Sim understood the self-loathing and tortured soul of Ebenezer Scrooge.

He wasn’t just a penny-pinching miser. He was a man, lost and twisted by the choices he had made in life. He understood full well what the consequences of these choices were and was prepared to live them out, unaware of the damage to those around him he was causing. Scrooge needed to learn to care for others in order to care for himself again.

Setting the story at Christmas was a way for that love to be expressed. Sim’s performance was a recognition of that transformative healing process and a noble human drama. Then along comes Netflix’s animated musical, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, which has two cute influences.

The first is a nod to the 1970 musical Scrooge that featured the legendary Albert Finney, directed by Ronald Neame with the score composed by the late Leslie Bricusse. While heralded as a faithful re-telling of the original story, the tagline on the film’s poster asked “What the dickens have they done to Scrooge?”

Upbeat and peppy, the film was in the same tradition as the 1968 Oliver, another Dickens musical adaptation. It was considered delightful and received abundant critical acclaim. However, one criticism did stand out, from Roger Ebert, in that the music fell below the level of good musical comedy.

I think that’s my first discomfort with this film. This is a story that shouldn’t have to rely on zippy musical comedy and, oh yes, animated drawings of perfect people. Scrooge, supposedly aged and weathered by the lifestyle of a lonely skinflint, is drawn to ideal perfection. I mean, I hope I look as good as this rendition of Scrooge does when I reach his age. Hell, I’d settle for it now.

Along with his stellar post-65-year-old physique, I want to know why he has a dog, or for that matter, incredible fashion sense? Sure, it’s the 1860s, but his colours and his suit choices are intensely inviting.

I want Scrooge to suffer. I don’t want him to have comforts like a rockin’ bod, an emotional support animal or a keen fashion sense. I want him to experience a degree of pain that he unwittingly inflicted upon others so that, in the end, he understands the cost of redemption.

I don’t want to laugh at his plight when the Ghost of Christmas Future shows him the legion of former debtors around his home, cheering and celebrating his death, which initiates the musical number “Thank You Very Much,” incidentally one of the songs originally created by Bricusse and included in the Netflix production.

The second cute influence is not as obvious, but the animation is directly comparable to a Don Bluth style of art. Bluth — director and creator of films such as All Dogs Go to Heaven, The Secret of NIMH, and The Land Before Time — is a former Disney employee who worked on The Fox and the Hound and Sleeping Beauty.

If there’s ever a guy whose art radiated wholesome, it’s his. When you watch this film, that’s the flavour it evokes, and again, hardly the backdrop for a story whose original purpose was to explore the depths of a person’s need for reclamation.

There’s no dispute to the abilities of the voice talent though. Luke Evans, a good Welshman, delivers a solidly good performance as Scrooge. His singing and performance voice are stage-perfect. Olivia Colman as the Ghost of Christmas Past is also without critique or fault. In fact, none of the performers can be improved on. They’re all perfect, quite frankly.

Yet it’s this stage-crafted perfection, worthy of the finest of London’s East End or of anything on or off Broadway, that still sticks in my mind. These are true artists who are delivering an idealised rendition of a story that is supposed to portray the imperfections of humanity so that we may learn and be inspired to do better. While that message is there, it is diluted by the glamour of the perfect artists’ rendering of mid-19th century London.

There are too many cute influences, too many perfect musical numbers and even the physical rendering of the characters themselves belie the gritty human struggle that has remained at the core of this story for this to render the true story of Ebenezer Scrooge.

He is a tortured character who eventually struggles and claws his way back to the light. We need to be reminded of this, and confront humanity’s unkindness to itself to be a part of the story and be worthy of the redemption that this story promises. In this way, perhaps we can also be redeemed and remember the message of not just this season, but what we should strive to be every day.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh for a cartoon, but, come on. Even the urchins were stylishly dressed.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol. Directed by Stephen Donnelly. Starring Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Trevor Dion Nicholas, and Jonathan Pryce. Available on Netflix December 2.