We’ve reached the point where we’ve adapted certain stories so many times that we now need a myth for the myth. We made too manyPeter Panadaptations, so we gotFinding Neverland. We made too manyWinnie the Poohstories, so we gotGoodbye Christopher Robin. And because we’ve adaptedA Christmas Caroltoo many times, we’ve now gotBharat Nalluri’sThe Man Who Invented Christmas, a story that could have provided an interesting look atCharles Dickensbut instead couches a bunch of familiar touchstones in coincidence and random observations. It’s a story that’s constantly torn between trying to show Dickens’ attempt to deal with his daddy issues and overcoming his writer’s block.
Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) has been suffering from a string of flops following the success ofOliver Twist. Overextended on his home’s renovations, he pitches a holiday story about a miser who is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. His publisher says it’s impossible to get it to print in time for the holidays, so Dickens takes a gamble on himself and decides to self-publish. While he spars with visions of his characters, led by an ornery Scrooge (Christopher Plummer), he must also deal with his spendthrift father John (Jonathan Pryce), whose poor spending landing a young Charles in a workhouse.
I suppose the original culprit of whimsical mythmaking about a famous author isShakespeare in Love, but that film isn’taboutthe writing ofRomeo & Juliet; it’s a love story that happens to include the development ofRomeo & Juliet. By comparisonThe Man Who Invented Christmasdoesn’t really know what it wants to be about. The title itself is misleading since we never really get a sense of what Christmas was beforeA Christmas Carol. And while Dickens goes through the motions of writer’s block and arguing with his characters, everything about him dealing with his past and fear of turning into his father feels tacked on and haphazard.
It doesn’t help that the movie feels exceptionally cheap. These are the kinds of obvious soundstages that you can get away with on something likeThe Muppet Christmas Carolbecause it’s Muppets and a cartoony look serves the setting, but here it looks like a Hallmark movie, which feels particularly incongruous when we have flashbacks to Dickens’ days working in a blacking warehouse.The Man Who Invented Christmasis constantly stumbling as it walks the line between Dickens’ wondrous imagination and his years enduring the sting of child labor.
I’m not opposed to a movie where we see Dickens trying to write one of his more famous novels, butThe Man Who Invented Christmasfeels like it’s going down the path of least resistance.Oliver TwistandDavid Copperfieldwould be far more in line with the autobiographical aspects of Dickens’ life and speak to his larger body of work, but becauseA Christmas Carolis his most well-known novel, the film is stuck trying to figure out a way to both expand that book into a story about Dickens’ life and shrink it so that every noteworthy element is something that can be glanced or name-dropped.
The whole endeavor makesThe Man Who Invented Christmascorny at best and cloying at worst. No one is obligated to make yet another movie based onA Christmas Carol, but the insightsThe Man Who Invented Christmaswants to claim are unearned and constantly feel forced. I’d much rather we were gifted a straight Dickens biopic than all this humbug.
