Dan Stevens is quickly
becoming one of my favorite working actors today, beginning with his breakout
performance as wealthy aristocratic heir Matthew Crawley in the hit television
show Downton Abbey to his wicked turn
as a trained killer in The Guest. Expressive, charismatic and full of seemingly
boundless energy, the British star now turns in his own unique interpretation
of one of the most beloved British authors of all time: Charles Dickens.
In this fast and loose
biopic crossed with an unorthodox retelling of the novelist’s most famous work A Christmas Carol, the aptly named heart
warmer The Man Who Invented Christmas aims
to place the viewer in the creative headspace of Mr. Dickens in the throes of
penning the holiday classic. Unlike the
Ralph Fiennes directed biopic The
Invisible Woman which aimed to lift the veil from Dickens’ legacy by
highlighting his thirteen year spanning infidelities, The Man Who Invented Christmas joins Saving Mr. Banks as a somewhat fluffy piece of revisionist
history.
And yet Dan Stevens’
performance is so entertaining in it’s Gene Wilder-esque manic energy and Tsunami: The Aftermath director Bharat
Nalluri renders the Victorian atmosphere with such fondness that we’re too
caught up in the Christmas pleasures to care.
Equally strong is veteran actor Jonathan Pryce as Dickens’ troubled
father who becomes the object of the author’s burgeoning frustration when he
invites himself back into his son’s life.
While Pryce doesn’t quite tap into the darker weathers deployed in Alex
Ross Perry’s Listen Up, Philip, he
manages here to be a sympathetic troublemaker we can’t help but feel some
measure of pity for.
A particular standout of
course goes to Christopher Plummer as Ebeneezer Scrooge, interacting freely
with the author as he struggles to write the story. There have been many different takes on the
iconic villain-turned-hero it is hard to choose which one is my favorite,
Alastair Sim and George C. Scott being neck and neck for me, though I have to
say this quasi-meta take on the character by Plummer is one of the most
interesting interpretations seen in decades.
Where many other interpretations that have come and gone that go through
the usual motions, it was exciting to see Plummer and Stevens play off one
another, suggesting Dickens had more in common with his unlikable protagonist
than he initially realized.
Descendants of Dickens often
remarked he was a desperately unhappy man with more than a few demons of his
past gnawing away at him. Though this is
ultimately a family Christmas movie/study of the writing process, The Man Who Invented Christmas does
manage to touch on Dickens’ dark side thanks to Stevens’ performance and
Nalluri’s atmospheric direction. There’s
also something to be said about the film’s free use of surrealism to dive into
Dickens’ head as he interacts with the characters of his creating as though
they were really real, disappearing in an instant as the outside world
interrupts the author’s creative impulse.
More than anything, as a holiday crowd pleaser The Man Who Invented Christmas presents Dickens absorbing information all around him like a sponge before ultimately channeling it into his now revered literary classics. Where the aforementioned The Invisible Woman seemed to wallow in the author’s despair in later life, The Man Who Invented Christmas for what it’s worth tries to shed light on the moment where Dickens for once truly did bring joy to the world.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki