In Review: A Christmas Carol (2020)

Synopsis: Christmas. A Victorian family prepares a toy theatre for their annual performance of A Christmas Carol. The grandmother narrates the story, whilst some of the children change the scenery and slide the cardboard characters on and off the stage.

The Story

This recent adaptation of Charles Dickens Classic tale puts a new spin on the story. The film starts with three Victorian Children cutting things out of old newspapers in order to prepare for their annual performance of ‘A Christmas Carol’. With all their preparations done. The kids make ready for their puppet show and set up their first scene in anticipation of their Grandmothers narration of the story.

As the narration begins we are taken to a magical world of dance and movement as the kid’s paper puppets come to life. The story begins with a brief dance routine depicting the restless spirits as they threat over how they can help the miserly scrooge find his way to redemption. This brief scene leads into the opening title card at which point the real story begins.

The Acting

The performances throughout this adaptation are fantastic. Martin Freeman provides his voice for the role of Bob Cratchit while Simon Russell Beale does a fairly decent scrooge. In fact, his performance in the latter part of the film when Scrooge awakes on Christmas morning reminded me a little of Alastair Sim’s portrayal from the 1951 movie ‘Scrooge’. He really captured the excitable mania that Scrooge is in.

Siân Phillips is brilliant as both the kid’s Grandmother and narrator and really emphasizes some of the more spooky aspects of the story.

Overall. The actors and dancers do an outstanding job of retelling this classic story. But the stylized way in which it is done will take a bit of getting used to if you are expecting a straight dramatic film adaptation. For example, the voices of the characters are dubbed over the performers. But the physical movement and acting are so well done that you do not notice it after a while.

Overall

Only recently released onto DVD, Blu Ray, and through Amazon Primes streaming service. This rather theatrical and artistic adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carol’ is well worth a look. And is available to both rent and buy on Amazon. I was quite surprised that this film only cost me £5.99 to buy. A bargain at half the price.

I should also point out that the music score for this is excellent. I particularly enjoyed the use of drums in the opening pre-titles sequence.