ENTERTAINMENT
WONDER BY JOHN CAMPBELL
THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS
If you are familiar with Charles Dickens’s two timeless novels, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations (which is irreplaceably in my all-time top ten – A Tale of Two Cities I had to read at school, which blinded me to its worth), you might have trouble aligning Dan Stevens’s at times flippant portrayal of the 19th century’s prolific writer/speaker/ polemicist with the man who is presented in the archives. For a start he hasn’t got that scraggly goatee. In director Bharat Nalluri’s depiction of Dickens, there is also a jokiness that is similar to that of Joseph Fiennes’s flighty Bard in Shakespeare in Love (1998) – not that there is anything wrong with breaking the mould owned by academia's dry sobriety. It is 1843 and, following a triumphant tour of America, Dickens has had little success with his most recent works. In October of that year, under pressure from his publishers, who are dangling before him a much-needed advance for a new manuscript, and supported by his friend and confidante John Forster (Justin Edwards), who encourages and prods
him to properly understand his characters (especially Ebenezer Scrooge), Dickens puts pen to paper and embarks on A Christmas Carol. In a screenplay by Susan Coyne that is mirthful without ever losing sight of the serious intent of the message that Dickens was sending to his readers, humour is evenly balanced with the stress of his being a husband supporting a large family. Even better, the story delves deep into the creative process, as we see the writer overpowered by the people whom he has brought to life through the words on his pages – especially in the case of Scrooge (Christopher Plummer, Methuselah of the silver screen). Drawn back to the bottom line, Dickens taps into his own deprived youth as a factory worker. The title of the movie might be overstating the impact that Dickens had on the festive season, but that Christmas has degenerated into a month of carnal, mindless consumerism is our problem, not his.
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Little Auggie (Jacob Tremblay) was born with a congenital condition that, even after twenty-seven operations, has left him with a sadly messed-up face. Lucky for him, he lives in a luxurious New York brownstone with parents Nate and Isabel (Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts), who are the nicest people in the world. It’s easy to be flippant if you have not been cursed by disfigurement (‘winning the lottery of life in reverse’), so I would not wish to pretend for one minute that I was not deeply affected in a choked-up, heart-swelling way by this movie. Writer/director Stephen Chbosky also gave us The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), so I should have known to expect something more perceptive, more generous in its humanity than what is par for the course in a mainstream tearjerker. Crunch time comes for Auggie when he is enrolled to start middle-school after being taught at home for years by his mum. Not surprisingly, the rest of the kids treat him as a freak and the
film is primarily concerned with how Auggie deals with it – being accepted for who we are, regardless of what we look like, is a theme that anyone can relate to (is ostracism of the ‘other’ worse now, in an age obsessed with image? Or was it ever thus?). And there is more to it than just that, as Chbosky gives equal time to those in Auggie’s orbit who are also affected by the problem he must overcome. The story concerning his sister Olivia (Izabela Vidovic), often overlooked because of her brother’s special needs, is in every way as endearing. The casting is perfect, right down to Daisy the dog, the sentiment rightful and unabashed, the romance between Via and Justin (Nadji Jeter) as sweet as a peach and the climax awesomely lachrymose. Having been worn down by its countless previews, I went along ready to mock and scoff, but in the end I was completely won over. ‘We all deserve a standing ovation, at least once in our lives.’ Go see it.
The Byron Shire Echo December 6, 2017 59