Scrooge: A Christmas Carol review: A worthy adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic

In ‘Scrooge: A Christmas Carol’, ghosts of Christmas past, present and future attempt to show Ebenezer Scrooge the error of his ways. The animated musical film is now streaming on Netflix.

Story

The narrative is an adaptation of the classic novella ‘A Christmas Carol’, published by Charles Dickens back in 1843.

Ebenezer Scrooge, an old miserly individual, absolutely despises the festival of Christmas. He is a ruthless man, who runs the business of lending money at extravagant interest rates.

While his nephew, Harry, tries to reconnect with his uncle, Scrooge is extremely hostile to his approach and dismisses his invitation for dinner with his family.

His disgust for Christmas partly comes from the fact that his sister and Harry’s mother, Jen, died after giving birth to him on Christmas Day.

Following this, his work with his business partner, Jacob Marley, slowly turned him into a spitting image of the greedy man. He also died on the night of Christmas Eve.

To show him what went wrong and what could go wrong, ghosts of Christmas past, present and future pay him a visit. Will he have a change of heart?

Positives

Although the classic narrative has been retold countless times, ‘Scrooge: A Christmas Carol’ keeps just enough to capture your attention throughout. It is crisp and the runtime is perfect.

A morality tale, in essence, Dickens’ story manages to transcend the time period itself. Capitalist mindsets continue to pry on the poor even almost two centuries later.

The exploration of the past, along with a glimpse into the present and future, implores the viewers to do the same and understand that it’s never too late to change things.

The animation is stunning and completely elevates the film. This is up there with this best animated film in terms of visuals.

And that’s not it. There are some mesmerising songs in there as well that fit like a glove with the sequences. ‘Later Never Comes’ is perhaps the pick of the bunch.

Negatives

The gimmicks with ghosts do not land as well as the writers what the writers would have been striving for. Especially the first two could have been pulled off much better.

Verdict

With any animated musical adaptation, all that can be asked is to create an engaging version that looks stunning and sounds incredible. ‘Scrooge: A Christmas Carol’ succeeds on all these fronts.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol review: A worthy adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic 1

Director: Stephen Donnelly

Date Created: 2022-12-02 16:43

Editor's Rating:
4

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