FILM REVIEW: A Christmas Carol - HOME, Manchester

Thinking that any Christmas simply wouldn't be Christmas without Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol'; for my final review before the big day itself, I was at HOME in Manchester to watch the 2020 film version of the story directed by Jacqui Morris.

Morris's version however, is a little strange, and takes some time to accustomise oneself to, and it is certainly a very brave and unique statement to make as a film-maker. I doubt it having a huge following though, and will probably, in time, achieve something of a cult status. The bulk of the text is taken directly from Dickens, with adapted and additional dialogue by David Morris.

The film is a mixture of contemporary ballet, voice-overs, theatre, cartoon, and goodness knows what else thrown into the mix. It starts normally enough, and we are shown a Victorian family with two young children building a cardboard theatre set in-the-round, complete with cut-out figures and flats. Their grandmother (Sian Phillips) opens a book and starts to tell them a story. The story is 'A Christmas Carol', and the theatre set [complete with cardboard cut-out footlights] becomes the setting of the story. From here on in, the filming continues this idea and the rooms are painted theatre flats with props and weights behind them; the snow falling outside is false, everything comes from the imagination of this child-like theatre set design. Sometimes we are even shown the cardboard cut-out figures or other cartoon style images instead of real people or places. The narration continues throughout, and when any of the main characters speak directly, then they are done as voice-overs, and the mute cast we see on screen are dancers. The whole is quite dark and moody, although it is also very clinical and clean. The deprivation, dirt and poverty that is spoken about never truly materialises, we have to imagine that.

One thing that did impress me with this film was that Scrooge (voiced by Simon Russell-Beale), was shown to be humane and real, with faults like everyone else, but a brain and a heart too; and his willingness to learn and change from the spirits' guidance is something that most other adaptations choose to ignore in favour of his mean and cruel side. The four ghosts are also just about as close to Dickens's actual description of them as they could perhaps be too, and I enjoyed seeing them as they had been originally intended.

Music is played almost continually throughout this 96 minute film, and cleverly interpolates a few calssical themes and well-known Christmas melodies within an original score. 

A thoughtful, elegaic, quite melancholic, fluid, adaptation; but conversely it also has little change, drama, and is somewhat predictable and unthrilling. 

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 23.12.21