Ebenezer

“Ebenezer” is the lastest of more than a dozen version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It is easy to understand the appeal of adapting the classic story of the cruel miser who is visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve and discovers the Christmas spirit for the screen. It is short, it is colorful and heartwarming, and the it is impossible not to warm to the idea of showing a man his own life to bring him to understanding and humanity. This version would be fine if not for so many that are better. My own favorites are the Alistair Sim version, the MGM version, and the Mr. Magoo musical. There are lesser versions as well. This latest, starring Johnny Depp, comes somewhere in the middle.

The setting is beautifully realized. Production design by Eve Stewart and cinematography by Checco Varese invite us into a chilly winter in Dickens-era London. It is Christmas Eve and Ebenezer Scrooge (Depp) and his partner, Jacob Marley (Sir Ian McKellen) are working on the books of their office, their clerk, Bob Cratchit (“Harry Potter’s” Rupert Grint) trying to ignore the cold and finish up so he can get home. Then Marley suddenly dies.

Seven years later, Scrooge has not spent the money to change the Scrooge and Marley sign outside the office and he is still threatening to make Cratchit come to the office on Christmas Day. Visitors arrive. First s Scrooge’s nephew, Fred (Sam Claflin), who wishes his uncle a merry Christmas and invites him to dinner. Scrooge rudely declines both. Then a pair of businessmen arrive to ask Scrooge to contribute to a charity providing food for the poor. Scrooge rudely declines them as well, accusing them of skimming the funds for themselves.

That night, Scrooge is visited by Marley’s ghost, who tells him that he will be visited by three spirits so he may avoid his partner’s fate of haunting the world bearing the chains his cruelty and selfishness forged to weigh him down after death. The first is the Spirit of Christmas Past (Andrea Riseborough), a sadder and scarier ghost than in most versions, who shows Scrooge some painful moments when he was a boy and a young man. Then is the near-gluttonous Spirit of Christmas Present (Trammell Tillman) who shows him the Cratchit family and Fred’s dinner with his wife and friends. And then there is the spooky, hooded Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come.

Scrooge is constantly peering through windows. It reminds us that he separates himself from others but it gets heavy-handed and repetitive. When he wakes on Christmas morning and wants to speak to the boy outside, instead of raising the window as in other versions, he smashes the glass. The eyes of the Spirit of Christmas Past have no iris, and her mention of her own regrets that doomed her to help others change their ways again communicate distancing and unwillingness to see others.

The images of crows throughout are also overdone. Much of what we know of the story is left out, including the merry and loving celebrations of the Cratchits and Fred. While those who are familiar with the story will miss seeing favorite moments, the bigger problem is that it removes the balance from what is presented to Scrooge, so his change of heart is not as meaningful.

Director Ti West (“V/H/S,” “Pearl’) leans into the horror of Scrooge’s literal and metaphoric haunting, and Depp shows us the way the miser’s past history of abuse, grief, and regret are turned outward to distance any possibility of warmth or generosity. In the book, the Spirit of Christmas Present lifts his robe to show Scrooge two starving waifs called Ignorance and Want. In this version, they gruesomely appear inside the dying spirit’s rib cage. Like some of the other changes, it is possibly more cinematic, but not particularly significant in telling the story.

The movie is fine. Parts of it are better than fine. But it never comes close to the far better films.

Parents should know that this film includes many supernatural characters and settings, some very disturbing. The story features child abuse, bullying, greed, and a sad offscreen death.

Family discussion: What does Scrooge learn from reviewing his past? Why does he reject Fred? If you were visited by three spirits, what would you want to see?

If you like this, try: the book and the other versions of the story as well as other Dickens books and films like David Copperfield and Great Expectations.