Ebenezer: Scrooge Reboot Doesn't Best Past Adaptations But Doesn't Sully the Canon

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B-

Better than expected and less corny than its trailers suggest, Ebenezer is a worthy if very commercial addition to the Christmas Carol cinematic canon that undisputedly peaked in 1951 with Alistair Sim as the mean, miserly curmudgeon Scrooge who is spiritually redeemed by a trio of ghosts on Christmas Eve.

Whether any remake or reimagining is necessary in that film’s wake is debatable; even its eventual colourization from its original black and white was perceived as pointless verging on scandalous. But no one who treasures Charles Dickens’ original fable or that evergreen adaptation of it will exit modern theatres in distress.

Two things elevate Ebenezer exponentially: fantastic set design that plops viewers smack into frosty, dreary Victorian London in late December, and Johnny Depp. A Christmas Carol succeeds or fails on the actor performing Scrooge, and whether they can authentically convey the emotional arc of a person wholly transformed in just a few hours, albeit with supernatural intervention. As Depp’s co-star Ian McKellen told Variety, Depp in Ebenezer is “in spankingly good form.”

Scowling and muttering beneath a balding pate and fat hook nose — and in his first major Hollywood role in nearly eight years — Depp nails it. Scrooge’s redemption feels authentic; wisely, the filmmakers opted to soften Scrooge’s morning-after turnaround, leaving the kooky histrionics to Sim’s version and instead highlighting the saved miser’s contrition and newfound joy.

One senses Depp and director Ti West (2024’s MaXXXine, 2022’s Pearl) revere the original story and approached the film hoping to more dynamically articulate its morality lessons through technology. The narrative is otherwise presented faithfully and is wonderfully acted across the board.

The beforementioned McKellen is briefly but forcefully featured as Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s equally contemptible business partner who drops dead on Christmas Eve 1836 and returns as a phantom seven years hence to warn Scrooge of impending visits from three ghosts that might spare him the miserable, punitive afterlife that he, Marley, swathed in chains, is enduring.

Each of the ghosts, regrettably revealed in the film’s second trailer (don’t watch it before you go), are nonetheless winning, notably Andrea Riseborough as the creepy, dead-eyed Ghost of Christmas Past — all papery skin and rhetorical questions — and Tramell Tillman as the cantankerous and doomed Ghost of Christmas Present whose rapidly decaying appearance is unsettling and serves as a striking metaphor for precious fleeting time.

True to form, the shrouded and unspeaking Ghost of Christmas Future is menacing, bony fingers emerging from beneath a black robe to point at empty spaces where a lame but treasured child once lived.

Also noteworthy is Rupert Grint as put-upon Bob Cratchit, Sam Clafin as Scrooge’s nephew, and Ellie Bamber as young Scrooge’s free-spirited but forsaken sweetheart, Belle.

So yes, Ebenezer overcomes most prejudices that fans of Sim — or George C. Scott or Bill Murray — might carry into the screening, presenting a film that is compelling anew. A pleasant and unexpected surprise.

Ebenezer. Directed by Ti West. Starring Johnny Depp, Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Ellie Bamber, Tramell Tillman and Ian McKellen. In theatres November 13.