Chattanooga Pulse

I am not a Jim Carrey fan. For me, he hasn’t done anything that really taps into his undeniable talent since In Living Color (OK, maybe “Eternal Sunshine”), and like many, if not most, comics, is misused and misdirected in many of the films he’s made since that classic TV show. (I should probably mention I am also not a fan of Jerry Lewis, Benny Hill or The Three Stooges, although I adore anything Python.)

I am also not a big fan of director Robert Zemeckis’s work. Here at The Pulse, they will joke that I am much more likely to be sighted weeping over an independent film from Poland with subtitles than Forrest Gump.

Yet I fully plan to see Disney’s A Christmas Carol, and luckily for me, it looks as though it will be playing all the way through the holiday season.

There have been at least 30 film versions of A Christmas Carol, dating all the way back to a black-and-white version in 1901. Dickens has been credited with “re-inventing Christmas” and there is certainly something eternal about the tale of a miserable miser who is given another chance to live a better life.

Several of the reviews of this film version call it “gothic,” as in “combining both horror and sentiment.” That appeals to me, for Dickens was a very gothic writer. Clear-sighted about the horrific poverty, the child laborers, the disease, the filthy tenements that were glossed over by wealthy Victorians as they lived their lives of ease, Dickens has no peer in English for writing passionately about these injustices. Speaking about the poor living in workhouses, one of the philanthropists who approaches Scrooge says, “Many of them can’t go there, and many would rather die.” “If they would rather die,” retorts Scrooge, “then let them do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Not so very far from the declared views of some modern radio talk-show hosts and politicians, is it? When 14 percent of the American population says they have trouble putting food on the table, at least some of the time, how far have we really come?

But as insightful as he was about this side of his times, Dickens was also incurably sentimental, another classic trait of Victorian literature. Today, many of his heroines seem insipid and even poor old Tiny Tim and his much parodied “God bless us, every one,” gives modern readers cavities with his syrupy story.

Yet A Christmas Carol endures, and beyond enduring, is beloved. Why? Because it is a story of redemption and hope. Scrooge’s heart is definitely at least two sizes too small, and his life as a ruthless businessman has without doubt harmed many people. (Bernie Madoff, anyone?)

Unlike Bernie, however, Scrooge is given the opportunity to review his life with the possibility of change, and we, as the invisible clingers to the Ghosts’ skirts, see what has caused the young Ebenezer to become the wizened Scrooge. As we do so, we think about our own lives. When have we been miserly with our love, our compassion, our open-heartedness? Is it too late for us to change?

Charles Dickens’s idea is that it is never too late. And that, for me, will always be his timeless holiday message. I read a version of this story every year and try to take its message to heart (and avoid shrinkage).

So, off I’ll trot to see what Jim Carrey makes of Ebenezer. It doesn’t hurt that Zemeckis also cast Gary Oldham, Bob Hoskins and Colin Firth; good on you, Bob.
And even if Carrey is no Alastair Sim, George C. Scott or Michael Caine (in A Muppet Christmas Carol), I strongly suspect I will hugely enjoy it anyway.

Disney’s A Christmas Carol
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldham, Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth
Rated PG
Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes