Rating:

I’ve reviewed It’s a Wonderful Life once before, during the Christmas season of 2004. Though that was but three short years ago, much has changed. In 2004 I was either retarded, an asshole, or both, because my assessment of this movie was completely wrong. Then I decried it as an overlong, boring, sappy piece of crap with a mushmouthed jackass in the lead role. Now I realize that this movie is wonderful and the me of three years ago should shut the fuck up.

The movie, as most of us know, tells the story of the life of George Bailey (James Stewart), from his childhood through his adult years. One at a time, the plans he’s laid for his life are altered, reversed or cancelled and he ultimately decides that his life basically sucks ass, that he should kill himself, and that everyone around him would be far, far better off had he never even been born. With the help of some angelic intervention, he learns, of course, that that simply isn’t true at all and that his life is great because he has people who love him and whatnot. It’s exceedingly maudlin and sugary-sweet, enough so to send you into a diabetic coma. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

That moronic version of me from three years ago was a real dingleberry about this kind of unashamedly schmaltzy and happy stuff. As such, he gave the movie, its actors and its characters no quarter. My review and summary of the picture is peppered with comments to the effect that George really ought to just go through with his suicide plans, because his life actually does suck no matter what some nosy seraphim has to say. Early on in the movie there’s a scene where George saves his little brother from drowning in an icy lake, losing his own hearing in the process. It’s an important moment in the character’s life, and here’s what I had to say about it in 2004: “Instead of teaching the little bastard a lesson and letting him die, George rushes in to the rescue.” Can you believe it? What a humbug!

In that earlier review I go on and on complaining about how long and boring the movie is. “For the next hundred hours or so, George dances with a gal named Mary” is one quote. Another is “No wonder this movie runs over two hours; the goddamn backstory takes eighty minutes.” What that impatient and grouchy asshole didn’t realize was that the backstory is just as much a part of the plot as the part where Clarence the angel teaches him a lesson. After all, the picture’s called It’s a Wonderful Life, not It’s a Wonderful One Particular Night When an Angel Came. The length of the backstory also serves a hugely important purpose: after all that, you’re damn invested in George Bailey. Thus, the bad stuff that’s happening to him isn’t happening to some faceless whoever. It’s happening to someone you care about. And I’ll tell you this: the movie is never boring and lame, as I once so stupidly proclaimed it. The characters are so richly drawn and well realized by their performers that you can’t help but invest yourself in them, and the mix of romance, drama and comedy makes for a story that keeps you wonderfully spellbound.

The movie makes no apologies for its overpowering sweetness, nor does it attempt to hide its feel-good motivations. Rather, it stands tall and proud and avows to the world: “Behold! I will tug your heartstrings and I will fill your brain with dripping sap. And you will love it!” And it’s true, we do love it. Under almost any other circumstances, this movie would be too sentimental, too unabashedly corny to be anything but terrible. But director Frank Capra was the master of the sentimental, the crown prince of corny. He took this mountain of schmaltz—the whole movie was inspired by the text on a greeting card, for god’s sake!—and made it not an unforgivable disaster but rather a cinematic masterpiece.

It’s movies like this that really make the Christmas season. Our good guys and our bad guys are clearly defined and the good guys just as clearly triumph. We’re given a lesson—that no man is a failure as long as he has friends—that’s impossible to disagree with. The scene with George and his sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed) both listening in to a call on the same telephone is probably the most incredible sequence of romance, love and sexual tension ever captured on film. And with Capra at the helm, Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in the lead roles and a supporting cast of all the most likeable people in the world, it all adds up to a movie that will warm your heart in all the proper ways, that’ll make you feel good and make you feel good about feeling good. I laugh and I cry each time I watch it, and while it’s playing I never want it to end.

Here’s to George Bailey, the richest man in town.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• White Christmas
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Yankee Doodle Dandy
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner