If you were to ask people which story they most associated with Christmas I would bet that 99.99% of those people would immediately say Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'. It is a classic of literature and is one of the most famous stories ever put to paper. This has of course led to an absolute plethora of films based on the story. 23 in fact. And those 23 are just straight up adaptations of the book, that doesn't even include films that are based on the famous story. That includes the film in question today, 'The Man Who Invented Christmas' (2017). This film is not in itself an adaptation of a Christmas carol, although it follows a lot of the same themes as the classic tale. It is instead the story of how the book came in to existence. The film follows Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) who, after the rousing of success of 'Oliver Twist', is struggling off the back of three flops, both creatively and financially. He soon gets the idea to write a new book based around Christmas, but struggles to get past his writers block. This isn't helped by the return of his estranged father and his continuing financial woes. He soon becomes possessed by the characters in his book and begins to take on the mannerisms of the infamous Scrooge. His obsession with the book begins to effect his relationships with his friends and family and it becomes clear that the book is teaching him as much as he is teaching through it.
First to say about the film is I love how it looks. I generally have a liking for the Victorian period look and feel and the film captures it all pretty perfectly in both the costume and set design. It also has great design when it comes to the scenes which are specifically from the Christmas Carol story. They are manage to capture the feel of classic Christmas Carol films while also managing to put a new twist on it. This is mainly due to the structure of these scenes and the storytelling device that the film takes rather than the actual set design, but its still worth of note. Speaking of the films structure it is an interesting one. It shows the characters from a Christmas Carol as real life people in the head of Charles Dickens. He interacts with them and and talks to them like real people, and they do the same in return. They are also all people form his own life, at least in appearance. It is a really interesting way of telling the story and makes for some fun scenes and interactions. Unfortunately, they may be a little to fun. I always found myself hoping to get to these scenes and drudging through the scenes with his father and his family. They are not bad scenes at all, but they are just a lot less interesting than the scenes with Charles and the characters from his book. The script itself is pretty hit and miss. Mostly its fine, but it has moments of 'do you get it?' littered throughout. Moments where really on the nose character names or story sequences that act as inspiration for the Christmas Carol story, and other Dickens stories. I am not a fan of when films do this, but it isn't all that heinous in this film so I can forgive it a little.
As for performances they are all pretty solid. That is to be expected from the cast which is made up of some great actors and some lesser well known ones. The two most recognisable stars are Jonathan Pryce and Christopher Plummer as John Dickens and Scrooge respectively. Jonathan Pryce puts in a good performance as the estranged father of Charles, although it is not exceptional in any means but I think that is due to the lack of dimension in the character and a lack of screen time. Christopher Plummer makes a decent Scrooge He is definitely not the definitive version of the character, but he is also playing a very different version of said character and he does a good job with it. Justin Edwards is also good in the role of John Forster, Charles' best friend and associate. He manages to portray a man struggling to understand and work with a man as intense as Charles, but still sticking by him despite his lack of empathy for him. Its unfortunate that the script puts their relationship a little on the back burner as it was a very interesting one within the film. And then we get to Dan Stevens as Dickens himself. Stevens puts in a hugely energetic and enthralling portrayal of the Dickens. He bounces around scene to scene with almost endless energy and it is pretty contagious. its hard to take your eyes away from him in any scene. He has moments where it feels like he is going a little overboard but for the most part he manages to keep it at a tolerable and enjoyable level.
I was working at the cinema during this films release and I seem to remember it coming and going with no real fan fair. After seeing it I can kind of see why. Despite an interesting story telling structure, good performances and a good look it is effectively just another Christmas Carol film, all be it told from a different perspective. However, I did have a good time with and I would recommend it. I just wouldn't recommend it over a lot of other Christmas Carol films. But if you are looking for a film with the spirit of both Christmas and a Christmas Carol but don't want to watch the exact same story over again then you should give this one a try.