It's
a Wonderful Life
(1946)
Rated: Not Rated
Runtime: 2 Hours and 10 Minutes
Reviewer: Dale
Grade: A+There are some who easily dismiss this movie as pap. As the sort of sticky-sweet tripe that they always try to veer clear of. The sort of movie that is so sweet and treacly that it is liable to give one a toothache. Well screw that! Those people are cynical idiots and they can rot alone in their gilded tower of cinematic ineptitude. Because the reason that "It's a Wonderful Life" has endured all these years, triumphing even though it was one of the biggest box office failures in history upon initial release, is because it is none of those things. And it should have been. There is a reason why people are still watching "It's a Wonderful Life" all these years later, and it's the same reason that people won't be watching crap like "The Santa Clause" over and over decades down the line. Not to say that I didn't find "The Santa Clause" pretty entertaining in its own right, but it was like a Little Debbie snack, fun and sweet but not likely to stick around for long.
"It's a Wonderful Life" is like a Little Debbie snack cake in an entirely different way: it keeps you coming back for more. And if "It's a Wonderful Life" is a snack cake, then Jimmy
Stewart is the creamy filling that makes the thing so damn good. Look again at Jimmy's character. He is a nice guy, sure, but Jimmy never made a character that was only a nice guy and nothing more. George W. Bailey (any coincidence that George W. Bush chose the name that he did???) is a nice guy, but a nice guy you can totally identify with. He may do the right thing when he absolutely has to, but he doesn't often want to. And he often bitches about doing it as well. His life has been one disappointment after another from the time he was a small child. It is a great strength of the movie that it does not start with George in trouble.
Instead, it shows us his life. It shows us all the things he went through, all that he had to give up, all the compromised dreams and unfulfilled promises. It shows us what led to him wanting to jump off that bridge, and what brought him to the brink of the abyss, to the end of his rope. It also makes us fall head over heels for George, to understand him implicitly, and to know what he is going through. It isn't all that different from what any of us have gone through in our lives. Such is the power of the film. It knows that we people are all basically the same.
It knows that we can identify with George and his problems and his love for a woman that he hardly knew he loved (Donna Reed).
And then comes the part you all know: the part where he is about to jump off the bridge and kill himself and then a low-rent angel appears to save him. Henry Travers plays Clarence, an angel who has fudged a few of his other assignments. This is, in fact, his last chance to earn his wings. A better angel might have undermined the inherent and gently nurtured sweetness of this movie. When Jimmy sees Clarence, hears his explanation and says "You look like the sort of an angel I'd get", well, the moment just hits so close to home. You can nod and think that, if you did have a guardian angel, it would be someone as inept as Clarence. But maybe
Clarence isn't quite as inept as he seems. After all, when Jimmy wishes that he'd never been born, Clarence (with a little help from the Big G) is able to grant his request. Jimmy soon learns that each of us touch everyone around us. Even if we don't want to, we can't help it.
Everyone we interact with is affected by our being there. It is a simple message, but an important one, and it is not as corny as it sounds.
Oh, I'm not saying that it's not corny at all. It has a few moments. The fact that his wife would become an old maid without him doesn't have the sting it might have had in 1946 (after what you see Jennifer Connelly doing by the end of "Requiem For a Dream", it's pretty much nothing) and a few elements may have dated. But it is still essential holiday viewing. It's a movie that nurtures hope and puts a big knot in your throat by the end. It's a movie that makes you smile and makes you think. It is without overly sentimental touches, and if there are any, I certainly didn't mind them. And it has weathered well.
It's easily the best of the holiday chestnuts and, if you don't mind me saying so, as far as being worn out by overplay, I think that honor should go to "A Christmas Story" instead. I've had about enough of that kid and his Red Ryder beebee gun, thanks anyway.
And God Bless Us, Everyone!