An Early Gift: A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Last fall, there was something very odd about sitting in a state-of-the-art multiplex, wearing plastic 3D glasses, and watching a movie that is, in some ways, so thoroughly, reverentially, old-fashioned. A Christmas Carol is one of the most often retold stories, starting with Charles Dickens’s original story from the mid-1800’s and including at least one version for each generation afterwards. Now director Robert Zemeckis has taken cutting-edge Hollywood technology (the same motion-capture animation that he used in the brilliant Polar Express and the noble failure Beowulf) and put it to work on this old story, seemingly lifting most of the dialogue word-for-word from the original text. The sense of looking both backwards and forwards doesn’t distract from the story, however. I’ve heard it many times before. Who hasn’t? But by the end I was still elated for Scrooge and filled with goodwill and Christmas cheer.

The movie mostly follows the mood and spirit of the classic tale like clockwork, moving through the very familiar plot once again, but the dust doesn’t settle around the gears. Zemeckis uses long flowing shots that slide and glide. Many sequences play out in one long take. A marvelous trip through 19th century London is a stunning opening to the film, grounding the movie in an impressive sense of time and place. The encounters with the ghosts are likewise stunning, expressive and bold and sometimes quite frightening. Zemeckis doesn’t forget that this is a ghost story, using swiftly shifting scale, color, and movement to throw the viewer, and Scrooge, off balance. I’m thinking specifically of an extraordinarily well-done sequence with the Ghost of Christmas Present that finds the floor of a room becoming translucent, and then the room itself breaking free from the laws of physics to take Scrooge on a vertigo-inducing trip around London without him ever having to leave his house. Except for a slightly miscalculated sequence involving icicle-related slapstick, this is a film of amazing imagery and narrative fidelity.

Speaking of Scrooge, he’s creepy and crotchety, a great example of excellent character design. He’s wrinkled and elongated with long, bony fingers and a slightly crooked, pointy chin. Jim Carrey, as the performance-capture and voice of the character, does not, despite my worst fears, devolve the role into rubbery shtick. Instead, he remains, like the film itself, remarkably faithful to Dickens words, capably delivering the dialogue and intent behind it. (Though, to be fair, there’s a bit of Alastair Sim in his performance). Carrey also plays the ghosts quite well and the animation supports him superbly; each design is strong and striking, even appropriately haunting. The acting and animation excellence extends to the rest of the cast. Gary Oldman shows up in a handful of roles (including Marley, Mr. Cratchit and Tiny Tim) as do Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, and Robin Wright Penn. They all bring fine physicality and welcome voices.

Even though this is an oft-repeated story, it still moved me. Supported by his excellent cast and a stirring score from Alvin Silvestri, who weaves in rousing renditions of Christmas carols, Zemeckis dazzles visually. He’s always possessed the potential to be, and many times he has been, a great visual storyteller, and with this particular style of animation he has brought his visions to greater heights. Always an innovator, from the time he mixed hand-drawn animation into a neo-noir comedy in the masterful Who Framed Roger Rabbit to the CG tweaking of archival footage in Forrest Gump, Zemeckis has now found, for better or worse, the perfect expression for his technologically driven storytelling. Bringing his skills as a live-action director into a fully animated environment, he moves the camera in ways that would be impossible in the real world, but he rarely lets his technology merely show off. The stunning technique only underlines the story’s inherent compelling qualities. In this case, he creates an admirably faithful, and smart, adaptation of a great story. What’s old is new again. This scary ghost story and moving, comfortably warm Christmas chestnut feels at once fresh and timeless. It thrills and moves like I never thought a new adaptation of A Christmas Carol would or could.

State of Play (2009)

If a thriller is like a pot of water, State of Play is centered on the right burner, simmers satisfactorily for a while, and manages to boil a few times, even if it doesn’t have enough material to ever boil over. The film follows a pair of reporters, one a veteran (Russell Crowe), one a newbie and a blogger (Rachel McAdams). As a routine murder (suicide? accident?) story turns into a sex scandal and then a full blow conspiracy piece, the two of them are drawn into an endless web of intrigue. There’s a wide and diverse supporting cast that really shines. There’s Helen Mirren as the tough and biting editor and Robin Wright Penn as the wife of a senator. There’s also a great collection of shifty slimeballs engaging in the skullduggery the leads must sort out. Ben Affleck is quite good – I’ve never thought him to be as bad an actor as some have made him out to be – as a senator who finds himself in the middle of a scandal. Among the respectable and suavely sinister supporting cast, Jeff Daniels, Jason Bateman, and David Harbour are great in the handful of scenes they each are given.

This is a slick, solid film handled well by director Kevin Macdonald. Three screenwriters are credited, reason enough, I suppose, for the watered-down feel of the vision. Matthew Michael Carnahan (Lions for Lambs, The Kingdom), Tony Gilroy (the Bourne films, Michael Clayton, Duplicity), and Billy Ray (Shattered Glass, Breach) are all adept crafters of thrillers but this, an adaptation of a six-hour BBC miniseries (unseen by me, though now I want to give it a look), feels a little rushed and jumbled, almost exactly like three different yet similar takes on the material cobbled together and sanded down, but not quite a smooth integration. Even so, this is a well drawn film with fine performances from fine performers that results in fine drama that’s consistently engaging. This isn’t exactly innovative or distinctive filmmaking but there’s something oddly comforting about seeing an old reliable genre trotted out done well and done right. The script is filled with fun lines and a deep vein of wit, as well as sharp twists of ratcheting tension and wrenching reversals of information that shine new light on sleaze and thicken the plot to a pleasant pulp (and it only once reminded me of the similarly circular Coen comedy Burn After Reading).

And there’s something engagingly current about this film which is a bit of a simultaneous eulogy and appreciation for the art of the printed newspaper (there’s even a bit of homage to that classic journalist film All the President’s Men in the way the final headline types across the screen). The editor complains about the corporation that took control of the paper. A reporter nervously compares his status to that of the new blogging department; after all, they’re cheaper, faster, and have lower standards, or so he says. It’s a rather touching tribute to what Crowe’s character would call “damn fine reporting.” There is a valiant melancholy to the tone of the film that sends the reporters, those brave investigative journalists, off into an uncertain sunset.

This isn’t a great thriller but it’s a good one, the multiplex equivalent of a well-written airport novel. It’s long – but not too long – complex – but not too complex – and satisfyingly immersive with some genuinely unexpected twists and a compelling mystery. I settled back into my seat, sipped my soda, and thoroughly enjoyed having the world melt away for a little over two hours, even though it was only replaced by a hightened and simplified version of it.