The novella, published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by John Leech, was an instant classic and sold out its first edition in the five days to Christmas Eve. A year later eleven editions had been published. It eventually sold over two million copies in the US.
The Man Who Invented Christmas, directed by Bharat Nalluri with a screenplay by Susan Coyne, tells the story of A Christmas Carol in a heart-warming, seasonal fashion. Shot with sumptuous production values and largely on location in Ireland, the film was made with the support of the Irish Film Board.
The novella was written by Dickens in a manic six-week sprint. He was desperate to rescue both his reputation and his finances, after three writing flops in a row. His aim with the book was to open the hearts of his readers to those less well-off and to encourage benevolent giving.
Dickens’ father John, colourfully played by Jonathan Pryce, is a significant minor character whose motto is “people will believe anything if you are properly dressed”. The spendthrift ways of Dickens Senior previously pulled his young family down the social ladder.
The film tells how, when the young Charles is 12, his father is thrown into a debtors’ prison. Charles is forced to leave school, sell his books and work in a boot blacking factory. The experience gives the future writer a deep empathy with the poverty-stricken.
A Christmas Carol is a tale of redemption. Ebenezer Scrooge, splendidly played by Christopher Plummer, is transformed from a miserable, grasping, lonely man to a benevolent and sociable being filled with a festive generosity of spirit.
Dickens’ novel did much to shape the modern celebration of the feast of Christmas, and to re-centre the focus on goodwill and giving without counting the cost. Dickens writes with the intention of delivering a short and sharp counterblow ‘to the very heart of this smug and self-satisfied age’.
Starring Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens, The Man Who Invented Christmas opens with the writer’s triumphant US reading tour of 1842. Dickens is feted as a literary sensation and the ‘Shakespeare of the Novel’.
A year later it’s a different story with the failure of Martin Chuzzlewit, among others. A travel book on his trip to the States has flopped, probably because its ‘too candid’. Debts are mounting, his family is growing and Dickens is suffering from writer’s block.
The film depicts Dickens’ creative literary style in a cinematic and engaging fashion. The book’s central figures live first inside the author’s head. The writer is shown seizing on interesting names and then spinning a character out of them.
“Get the name right and the character will appear,” he declares.
A fruitless visit to his solicitor, Haddock, leads to an impetuous decision to self-publish his novel. An infringement of the copyright to Oliver Twist has led to an award for damages of £2200. Alas, the guilty party is bankrupt. But Haddock presents his fee nonetheless.
A cameo by David McSavage as his publisher Hall is impressive. The firm decides that there is little market for a Christmas book. But Dickens seizes inspiration from his Irish handmaid Tara and her colourful ghost stories. He decides to set his novel at “that time of year when men and women open their shut-up hearts”. Or as Scrooge says “when there is an excuse for picking a man’s pocket every December”.
As the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future start coming to life in his head, Dickens creates his masterpiece.
Heart-warming
The film’s heart-warning message is summed up in Dickens repeated words that “no one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of another”.
The Man Who Invented Christmas is an excellent addition to the canon of well-loved seasonal films. Like its namesake novel, it’s an instant classic and well worth a trip to see it on the big screen.