Movie Review: 'The Man Who Invented Christmas'

The Man Who Invented Christmas is a remarkably dull movie. Regardless of the good intentions and the good ideas at the heart of the film, the story and specifically the character of Charles Dickens, never get going. The story about how Charles Dickens came to write A Christmas Carol likely wasn’t all that dramatic; most writing isn’t particularly dramatic, in and of itself. But where The Man Who Invented Christmas fails is in finding some aspect of Dickens that was interestingly dramatic while he wrote his masterpiece. Instead, we have an almost insufferable lead character on a predictable journey toward a well-known outcome.

The Man Who Invented Christmas stars Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens. Having published three flops in a row, Dickens is facing financial ruin if his next book isn’t a hit. An encounter with a miser at a reading of one of his more popular works leads Dickens to the creation of Ebenezer Scrooge who, in the universe of Dickens’ mind, comes to life in the form of a sad, angry, and acerbic old man (Christopher Plummer). Scrooge interacts with his creator and this is to be the processes through which we watch Dickens form his classic.

The gimmick is cute at times and Plummer is by far the best thing in the movie, but there isn’t much else to The Man Who Invented Christmas beyond this gimmick. More of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol characters come to life, but they occasionally vanish, as well, when he gets distracted by his real life problems, which include an unexpected visit from his goodhearted but freeloading parents, Jonathan Pryce and Ger Ryan.

Stevens’ performance as Dickens is fidgety and not particularly charismatic. He whines and moans and worries about losing everything and ending up in a workhouse like the one he was left in briefly as a child. He’s occasionally bitter, but otherwise is your average workaday nice guy who happens to beautifully string words together into stories when the mood strikes him. The Man Who Invented Christmas portrays the creation of A Christmas Carol as a particularly painful bit of creative work, but since we know he doesn’t fail, there doesn’t appear to be much at stake.

A better movie might find ways to help us forget the historic success at stake or mitigate the lack of stakes with better dialogue and a more lively group of characters. Sadly, the makers of The Man Who Invented Christmas seem to be relying entirely on the false stakes of whether Dickens will complete his masterpiece on time and the obstacles to his much needed success. The filmmakers fail to recognize that we know this works out and while, from the perspective of the characters, there is a great deal at stake, there is no drama for those of us in the audience.

There is one great scene in The Man Who Invented Christmas. It comes late in the film as Dickens is struggling to find his last chapter. Dickens confronts the secret, sad history of his time as a child laborer in a boot blacking workhouse. Here he is confronted by his villainous Scrooge who mocks Dickens’ for his failure to finish the book and more specifically Dickens’ seeming hypocrisy when it comes to believing the worst in his characters at the expense of the story he’s telling about how Christmas brings out the best in even the worst of people.

It’s basically Dickens discovering the instrument with which the heart of Scrooge turns from miserly humbug to Merry Christmas. Plummer as Scrooge stands inside his unmarked grave as the walls begin to close in and suddenly his fear comes forward, the old man doesn’t want to die unremembered and unloved. Naturally, this is the same fear that drives Dickens himself and while the revelation is somewhat fumbled, Plummer is remarkable in the moment and brings out the best in Stevens at the same time.

One great sequence however, can’t make up for an otherwise dull movie. The Man Who Invented Christmas is a well-intentioned Hallmark movie dressed up in the production design of a feature film. It’s a lovely looking movie with a good heart, but not much of anything else going on. The Man Who Invented Christmas opened nationwide on Thanksgiving Day.