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A Christmas Carol
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Robert Zemeckis
Produced by	Jack Rapke Steve Starkey Robert Zemeckis
Written by	Robert Zemeckis Charles Dickens (Story)
Starring	Jim Carrey Gary Oldman Cary Elwes Colin Firth Bob Hoskins Robin Wright Penn Daryl Sabara Molly C. Quinn
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Cinematography	Robert Presley
Editing by	Jeremiah O'Driscoll
Studio	ImageMovers Digital
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)	November 3, 2009 (2009-11-03) (London) 02009-11-06 November 6, 2009
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$175[1]–200[2 ] million
Gross revenue	$318,536,788[3 ]

A Christmas Carol (also known as Disney's A Christmas Carol) is a 2009 film adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 story of the same name. The film is written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, and stars Jim Carrey in a multitude of roles, including Ebenezer Scrooge as a young, middle-aged, and old man, and three of the ghosts who haunt Scrooge.^[4]

The 3-D film was produced through the process of performance capture, a technique Zemeckis has previously used in his films The Polar Express (2004) and Beowulf (2007).^[4]

A Christmas Carol began filming in February 2008, and was released on November 3, 2009 by Walt Disney Pictures.^[5] It received its world premiere in London, coinciding with the switching on of the annual Oxford Street and Regent Street Christmas lights, which in 2009 had a Dickens theme.^[6][7]

The film was released in Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3-D. It is also Disney's third retelling of A Christmas Carol in 26 years, having released Mickey's Christmas Carol in 1983 (using the in-house Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck characters, as well as anthropormorphized characters from some of the animated Disney films) and later distributing The Muppet Christmas Carol for Jim Henson Productions in 1992, with Disney later acquiring the rights to The Muppets from Jim Henson Productions. The film also marks Jim Carrey's first role in a Disney film.

Plot

The film opens with Ebenezer Scrooge signing for the burial of his partner Jacob Marley on Christmas Eve. Seven years later on in 1836, in London, England, Scrooge, a bitter and miserly old moneylender at a counting house, holds everything that embodies the joys and spirit of Christmas in contempt, refusing to visit his cheerful nephew Fred's Christmas dinner party with his family, and forcing his underpaid employee Bob Cratchit to beg to take the day off for his own family. That night, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who had died seven years prior on Christmas Eve and is now forced to spend his afterlife carrying heavy chains forged from his own greedy ways. Marley warns Scrooge that he will suffer an even worse fate if he doesn't repent, and foretells that he will be haunted by three spirits that will help guide him.

The first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, shows Scrooge visions of his own past that take place on or around the Christmas season, reminding him of how he ended up the avaricious man he is now. He had spent much of his childhood neglected by his father over the holidays at boarding school until he was finally brought home by his loving sister Fan, who died prematurely after giving birth to his nephew, Fred. Scrooge later began a successful career in business and moneylending and became engaged to a woman named Belle, though she later called off the engagement when he began to grow obsessed with accumulating his own wealth. Unable to bear having to witness these events again, Scrooge extinguishes the spirit.

The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, shows Scrooge the happiness of his fellow men on Christmas Day. Among them are his nephew, Fred, who playfully makes jokes with his family at Scrooge's expense, and Bob Cratchit and his family, who are just barely able to make do with what little pay Scrooge gives Cratchit. The Cratchits also tend to a sickly young son, Tiny Tim, whose commitment to the spirit of Christmas touches Scrooge, who is dismayed to learn from the spirit that he may not have much longer to live. The spirit warns Scrooge about the evils of Ignorance and Want, which manifest themselves before Scrooge as snarling, wretched, beastly children. The ghost laughs heartily and disintegrates into a skeleton as it vanishes.

The third and final spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, shows Scrooge the final consequences of his greed and even toys with him a few times. Scrooge sees in this future that he has died, though there is more comfort than grief in the wake of his death, the men attending his funeral only going for a free lunch. In addition, Fred is glad to be inheriting his wealth, and Scrooge is even robbed by his former maid, even stripping the clothes he was buried in. Tiny Tim is also shown to have died, leaving Bob Cratchit and his family to mourn him on Christmas. Unwilling to let this grim future come to pass, Scrooge begs to be given a second chance as the spirit forces him into his deep and empty grave to fall into his coffin, which sits atop the fires of Hell.

Scrooge awakens to find himself in his bed on Christmas morning, the three spirits having guided him over the course of one night, and immediately sets out to atone for his sins, making donations to the poor, attending Fred's dinner party, and giving Cratchit a raise to care for his family, allowing Tiny Tim to live. Scrooge spends the remainder of his life a new man embodying the spirit of Christmas itself.

Cast

• Jim Carrey as:
  • Ebenezer Scrooge, the main character of the film. He is a cold-hearted, tight fisted, greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which engender happiness.
  • Ghost of Christmas Past, the first of the three spirits that haunt Scrooge in order to prompt him to repent. It shows Scrooge scenes from his past that occurred on or around Christmas, in order to demonstrate to him the necessity of changing his ways. It is depicted as a young, androgynous human with a waxy, candle-like body and a flickering flame for a head, who speaks in a dreamy, slow voice with an Irish accent, and sways about.
  • Ghost of Christmas Present, the second of the three spirits, who shows Scrooge the happiness of his nephew's middle-class social circle and the impoverished Cratchit family. He is depicted as a large, jolly man with red hair, a full beard, and a green ermine robe who ages rapidly while he's with Scrooge. He has a tendency to laugh heartily, even as he dies.
  • Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the third of the three spirits, who shows Scrooge the final consequences of his lifestyle if he doesn't change his ways. He is depicted as a large shadow in the shape of the Grim Reaper cast across the ground or a wall, and occasionally emerges into three dimensions to point at something or to chase Scrooge in a large, shadow-like horse carriage.
• Gary Oldman as:
  • Jacob Marley, a former business partner of Scrooge. Having been dead for seven years prior to the events of the film, he visits Scrooge as a ghost and warns him of the three spirits that will confront him about his demeanor.
  • Bob Cratchit, the abused, underpaid clerk of Scrooge.
  • Tiny Tim, Cratchit's youngest son. He is voiced over by Ryan Ochoa.
• Cary Elwes as:
  • Portly Gentleman #1, a man who requests from Scrooge a donation to those less fortunate
  • Dick Wilkins Scrooge's old roommate
  • Mad Fiddler
• Colin Firth as Fred, Scrooge's optimistic nephew and only living relative.
• Bob Hoskins as:
  • Mr. Fezziwig, the proprietor of a warehouse business for whom Scrooge worked as an apprentice.
  • Old Joe, a fence who buys the belongings of the deceased Scrooge from Scrooge's old maid.
• Robin Wright Penn as:
  • Fan Scrooge, Scrooge's sister.
  • Belle, Scrooge's neglected fiancée.

Production

Zemeckis has stated previously that A Christmas Carol is one of his favorite stories dealing with time travel.^[8] Carrey has described the film as "a classical version of A Christmas Carol [...] There are a lot of vocal things, a lot of physical things, I have to do. Not to mention doing the accents properly, the English, Irish accents [...] I want it to fly in the UK. I want it to be good and I want them to go, 'Yeah, that's for real.' We were very true to the book. It's beautiful. It's an incredible film." ^[9]

Reception

Box office

The film opened at number one in 3,683 theaters, grossing $30,051,075 its opening weekend, with an average of $8,159 per theater.^{[2 ]} The film has come to gross an estimated $137,481,366 in the United States and Canada and $181,000,000 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $318,481,366.^{[3 ]}

Critical reaction

The film received mixed to positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 55% of 169 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.9 out of 10. The site's general consensus is that "Robert Zemeckis' 3-D animated take on the Dickens classic tries hard, but its dazzling special effects distract from an array of fine performances from Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman."^[10] Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 46%, based on a sample of 28 reviews.^[11] Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 55 based on 32 reviews.^[12]

In his review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie four stars, calling it "an exhilarating visual experience".^[13] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A, applauding the film as "a marvelous and touching yuletide toy of a movie".^[14] Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News gave the film 3/5 stars, but claimed the film "is well-crafted but artless, detailed but lacking soul." ^[15] Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com gave the film a mixed review claiming the movie "is a triumph of something — but it's certainly not the Christmas spirit." ^[16] Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal wrote in his review that the film's "tone is joyless, despite an extended passage of bizarre laughter, several dazzling flights of digital fancy, a succession of striking images and Jim Carrey's voicing of Scrooge plus half a dozen other roles."^[17]

Cultural references

• Two boys, and later Scrooge himself, hold onto the back of a coach and skate on the icy streets while waving at people, referencing Marty McFly being late for school in Back to the Future, another time travel film by Robert Zemeckis.
• As he is chased by the Ghost of Christmas yet to come, Scrooge shrinks and slides through the drainpipes under the city, in reference to the way that Jim Carrey's other Christmas-hating character, the Grinch, travelled from Mt. Crumpit to Whoville in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
• Jim Carrey is reunited with cast members of previous films: Cary Elwes starred with him in Liar Liar and Fionnula Flanagan starred with him in Yes Man.
• This is the first film Robin Wright Penn and Cary Elwes have appeared in together since The Princess Bride.
• Director Robert Zemeckis is reunited with cast members of his previous films: Bob Hoskins starred in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (also produced by Disney); Robin Wright Penn starred in Forrest Gump and Beowulf; Daryl Sabara voiced Hero Boy in The Polar Express.

Differences from the book

The Phantom Hearse scene is moved to the "Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come".

Ignorance and Want quickly grow up in one scene. Not in the book.

Scrooge and the "Ghost of Christmas Present" don't fly over seas and visit Miners in the movie.

In the book, the "Ghost of Christmas Present" dies but he just disappears. In the movie, they show him dying at length.

They don't show Scrooge's schoolmaster or Ali Baba.

They don't show Belle with her family.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come doesn't chase Scrooge with the horses in the book.

Scrooge isn't supposed to shrink.

At the scene with Old Joe and Mrs. Dilber, in the movie, the undertaker and the other women don't come unlike the book.

Scrooge falls into his own grave (similar to Mickey's Christmas Carol).

See also

• List of A Christmas Carol adaptations

References

External links

• Disney's official A Christmas Carol minisite
• A Christmas Carol at the Internet Movie Database
• A Christmas Carol at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• A Christmas Carol at Rotten Tomatoes
• A Christmas Carol at MetaCritic
• A Christmas Carol at Box Office Mojo