I know, it’s hardly the right time to be watching this movie but I’ve been intending to watch it since the beginning of December. It’s one of my favourite Christmas movies, I had it lined up to watch, it was even on TV, but I never got round to watching it until now. Really all I wanted to do was see if the reason I cried last time I watched it was because I was drunk (more likely than ever at Christmas) or if it’s actually a crying movie. The answer – it’s actually a crying movie.

I don’t know if I’m right in saying this because I have odd misconceptions about the 80s and I often rush into saying things like, “No good movies were made in the 80s!” then I realise that loads were… but this movie really seems ahead of its time to me, even the way the Paramount logo sweeps out of view as Danny Elfman’s brilliant title theme plays.

This is another movie like You’ve Got Mail for me – it does everything ‘wrong’ that I hate, yet here and only here, I love it. Bill Murray’s yelling, screaming, speaking to himself while walking down the street… it all just works. I think it’s down to the supporting actors – Carol Kane and others as the 3 ghosts, but Carol Kane in particular, there’s something devilishly thrilling about her kicking and punching and pinching Bill Murray for the duration of her little segment. Then there’s the brother with the perfect life, the threatening new employee with the perfect behaviour (hand on the shoulder, shake so patronisingly), Murray’s secretary and her poor family, dressing the little mute kid up like a Christmas tree, and that little mute kid, the Tiny Tim of this retelling, the reason I cry, his delivery of “God Bless Us Everyone” is perfect, and enhanced by the mother’s reaction. And of course, the beautifully wide-eyed Karen Allen as the ex-girlfriend… she is incredibly cast here, I desperately need to catch up on her other work because she was more beautiful than ever here.

There’s little to say about comedies except all I can say, this is one of the best Christmas comedies there is, up there with Bad Santa and Elf, and I think before those last two appeared last year, Scrooged was probably about all we had.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 25th, 2004 at 10:36 pm in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as Christmas, comedy, Eighties, NYC, tearjerker, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.