REVIEW: Scrooged

What exactly is it about Dickens' A Christmas Carol that makes it so endlessly adaptable? This one simple story takes up so much real estate in the realm of holiday specials to the point that it boggles the mind. Is it because the story is so ingrained in the public consciousness that we simply can't get enough of it? Is A Christmas Carol just the yuletide monomyth? Personally, I feel as though it's just an easy out for content creators; need a Christmas episode that writes itself? Christmas Carol parody! Need something to rake in those holiday weekend box office dollars? How's about a star-studded Christmas Carol remake? Need a story to tell your kids on Christmas Eve? Dickens, baby. It's always Dickens. When it comes to entertainment, A Christmas Carol is the bread and butter of the holiday season. It's an adaptation that not only writes itself, but which can be revisited year after year after year. It's one hell of a racket. Thankfully, this laziness can be subverted with a hefty dose of ingenuity, such as in the 1988 Richard Donner film, Scrooged.

Bill Murray stars as Frank Cross, a bloodthirsty TV executive charged with airing a live production of A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve; he's inconsiderate, arrogant, and completely blind to the plights and tribulations of his employees. An effective Scrooge stand-in if ever there was one. As one might expect, he is visited by three ghosts who hope to convince him to change his ways before it is too late to save his immortal soul. It's A Christmas Carol. The key factor here is how creative the filmmakers got in presenting this time-honored tale in a new and unique way. It hits all the beats of the story without feeling derivative; instead of Tiny Tim, we have Calvin, the son of Murray's overworked assistant. Rather than sporting a crutch, he's been mute for the past five years after witnessing his father's murder. This is a film that is definitely not all tinsel and gumdrops. It goes to some truly dark places and, while I found this tone more or less refreshing, I admit that it may be too dour and mean-spirited for some.

The film is very much a character study, rather than an ensemble piece. We have actors such as Karen Allen, David Johansen, Bobcat Goldthwait, and John Forsythe, but none of them really get much of an opportunity to leave a huge impression, considering the focus is always on Bill Murray. He does a good job, considering he takes up so much of the spotlight, but it would have been nice to see a little more of the people he has such a negative effect on over the course of the film. It almost spreads itself too thin with the cast, to the point where we need to tie up too many loose ends by the end of the third act. Characters who are made to feel very important (such as Grace, Frank's assistant played by Alfre Woodard) are given the same amount of closure and attention in the end as characters like Brice Cummings (John Glover), an LA slimeball gunning for Frank's job. This is, by nature, a very intimate story, looking at exactly what led a generally kind, good-natured man to become a real genuine dirtbag. We can feel that intimacy and emotion in regards to Murray's life, but those feelings are somewhat absent for the members of the supporting cast.

The humor, for the most part, works well. As I said, it may be a little too mean-spirited for some, but I personally had a blast with it. Few can play sardonic and exasperated as effectively as Bill Murray, and the film is just oozing with his token personality. It's when the movie veers into more traditional fodder for jokes (like the uncharacteristically slapstick stylings of Carol Kane's Ghost of Christmas Present) that the film falls flat. Murray commands the humor in this film, and its when the comedy attempts to steer itself out of his sarcastic, irreverent wheelhouse that it suffers and stalls. There's tons of subtle little touches that make this a joy for anyone remotely familiar with the television industry (such as the studio head's insistence that he's found "a study which shows that cats and dogs are beginning to watch television"). It's subtle moments like these that raise the film up and really make it something special. It's a dry, irreverent idea for a film to begin with, so the humor works best when it's matching that tone. 

That said, the one glaring issue with this film is without a doubt the rampant tonal inconsistency. There's an undercurrent of cynicism and subversion that comes with adapting a classic Christmas story in such a modern, hard-edged kind of light. At the same time, it is also attempting to pass as a straightforward Christmas Carol adaptation. There are moments when the schmaltz required by the story actually works (such as when Frank unwraps a handmade picture frame from his brother), but these moments are few and far between. This disparity really only becomes obvious during the final act, when everything falls apart. Up to this point, the film had been subversive and sardonic in a fun, coherent kind of way. Everything meshed together well, since the more emotional aspects of the story so far had been just as dark as the comedic aspects. It is in the third act, however, that everything goes utterly off the rails. Bill Murray, normally cool as a Christmastime cucumber, plays his change of heart with all the vigor of someone suffering a psychotic break. He interrupts his own live broadcast to give a rambling, tonally all-over-the-place speech about the true meaning of Christmas that doesn't mesh with the rest of the film in the slightest.

We're made to believe that this is a beautiful, inspiring moment, yet I couldn't stop myself from thinking that there's no way this has a happy ending, especially for Bobcat Goldthwait's character (who, after getting fired in the beginning of the film, had gone completely postal and was holding the channel's control room at gunpoint). Going by the film's sense of logic, I can only assume that Frank got fired, Bobcat went to prison, and no one's situation improved in the slightest. Despite all the ghostly hijinks, this feels like a very grounded film. It had never been afraid to present the audience with the grim reality of a situation; Frank is forced to find out that his actions lead to a homeless man freezing to death and his assistant's child ending up in an asylum. Not to mention Bobcat Goldthwait showing up at the office with a loaded shotgun. But then immediately after presenting us with these bleak, pessimistic possibilities, the film expects us to believe that everything works out like a Christmas miracle. It leads to a real sense of tonal whiplash, considering that the movie doesn't adhere to its own established sense of logic. This is the one time I actually would have much preferred the movie stick closer to the source material, with a generally reserved, intimate finale that tugs the heartstrings and more aligns with what we'd gotten used to over the past hour and a half.

It's a real shame that Scrooged fumbles with its ending as roughly as it does; had it pulled it off, it would have easily been my favorite Christmas Carol adaptation, hands down. As it is, the rest of the movie is really quite good regardless. It's definitely not for everyone, but I found its brand of mean-spirited irreverence to contrast nicely with the usually saccharine Christmas season. Then again, I'm the type to watch Gremlins or Krampus this time of year, rather than It's a Wonderful Life, so take my words with as many grains of salt as you deem necessary. It's a subversive take on a holiday standard that makes for a solid good time that I can't help but recommend, despite its flaws. It's an example of real creativity on display in what could have been a painfully milquetoast experience; for that alone, I feel as though it's worthy of praise.