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A workmanlike retelling of the iconic tale

"A man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower.'"

Was another adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol really necessary, especially with several excellent retellings already available on home video? The answer is probably not, but that didn't prevent this 1999 made-for-TV iteration of A Christmas Carol from being made. Patrick Stewart spent years performing a successful one-man version of the story on stage, thus it was logical to preserve Stewart's interpretation of the infamous Ebenezer Scrooge on film. Luckily, the resultant picture does possess a certain charm, and it manages to encapsulate the magic of Dickens' enduring classic. However, this A Christmas Carol is a very workmanlike adaptation; not awful or unwatchable but certainly unremarkable, as it lacks a unique spin to distinguish it from hundreds of other adaptations. Sure, we have Patrick Stewart at the centre of it all, but everything else is too ordinary.



Set in Victorian London in the 1800s, Ebenezer Scrooge (Stewart) is a bitter, miserly businessman whose number one priority is making money. A solitary curmudgeon, Scrooge resides in a huge house he's too cheap to cheat, and the community both fears and loathes him. Seven years prior, Scrooge's business partner Jacob Marley (Lloyd) died, leaving just Scrooge and his poor, long-suffering assistant Bob Cratchit (Grant). Christmas is a holiday that Scrooge particularly despises, and he's appalled by the notion of Cratchit taking the entire day off without his wages being affected. But on one Christmas Eve, Scrooge is haunted by the ghost of Jacob Marley who warns Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits - the Ghost of Christmas Past (Grey), the Ghost of Christmas Present (Barrit) and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come - who aim to show Scrooge the error of his ways and offer him a chance at redemption.

A Christmas Carol has been done to death, and was well-trodden territory before this version went into production. It's therefore difficult to put a fresh spin on the material, and 1999's A Christmas Carol barely even tries; the story is told in a straightforward fashion, with no audacious twists or turns. To be fair, though, there is a bit more lead-up preceding the supernatural journey, with an opening scene depicting Marley's outdoor funeral being the most notable inclusion. What's also nice about this version is that it utilises a seldom-used portion of Dickens' original text: the Ghost of Christmas Present showing Scrooge people around the world who live under miserable conditions but still find time for Christmas. However, not everything works; the slang term "joshing" is used, even though the word was likely not used in the 19th Century. Plus, Scrooge's sister is named Fan in the source material, but here she's known as Fran for some reason.



Directed by David Hugh Jones, this A Christmas Carol was produced for the TNT cable channel under the auspices of Hallmark Entertainment. While production values are decent and the attention to period detail is above-average for a television movie, a lot of interiors and street scenes look too stagey, as if the filmmakers shot on back-lots rather than a lived-in town. At least pacing is smooth and Jones' direction is respectable. However, one of the film's biggest downfalls is its depiction of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Sequences involving this spectre should be sinister and chilling, yet the spirit here looks more like a Jawa from Star Wars, sapping any sense of threat from these scenes. Also, during the aforementioned globe-trotting scene, Scrooge and Ghost of Christmas Present travel to different locations via a tornado. The tornado is a horrid device which should have been scrapped in pre-production, let alone kept in post-production with its dismal special effects.

If viewers can separate Patrick Stewart from his portrayal of Captain Picard in Star Trek, they should easily be able to accept the actor as Ebenezer Scrooge. Stewart first played the character in 1988, and has frequently performed his show around the holiday season in the decades since. The actor has an astute understanding of Scrooge, and he makes for an excellent curmudgeon, believably gruff at the beginning of the story and convincingly changed by the end. The supporting cast isn't bad. Dominic West is credible as Scrooge's nephew Fred, while Richard E. Grant is a wonderful Bob Cratchit. The spirits, though, are a tad underwhelming.



It's difficult to review further retellings of A Christmas Carol. The terrific 1951 version with Alastair Sim is universally revered, and we've also had the excellent TV movie with George C. Scott (this reviewer's favourite iteration of the story), a brilliant but underrated animated movie from the early '70s which brought back Sim as Scrooge, a modern retelling with Bill Murray, and lots more. In comparison, 1999's A Christmas Carol is just okay. It's not the worst version you will ever see, and it would probably have more merit if it was not preceded by so many other Christmas Carol retellings. Nevertheless, there are far better versions of this story out there.

6.2/10

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Added by PvtCaboose91
11 years ago on 9 December 2012 10:47

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