Write a commentIt is incredibly easy to be cynical.
The world gives you vastly more evidence that things are terrible and never going to improve than it does of anything even remotely hopeful. Just look at the headlines: corruption, war, racism, misogyny, murder. All right under our noses. And at all times. Good news rarely gets decent ratings and the media knows this. So, what happens? The public spirals into infighting and insult, inequity and injustice. Media companies capitalize on pessimism, letting them get richer and the poor blame one another.
Do I have your attention? Good. Because I'm going to do something that will seem entirely alien to me. Something so foreign that most would believe it's more likely that I sprout wings and fly to City Hall to land atop our city's Christmas tree.
I'm going to be optimistic.
Terrible, isn't it? Like cookie cake, overly sweet to the point it makes you sick later on. Trust me, I know. Someone brought one in at work and it had cake frosting all over it. I was queasy all night.
Things always depend on your outlook. "Exemplify an attitude of gratitude" or something, right? You should be grateful for what you have. But, it's hard. It can be so hard. Some people have broken homes, illness and poverty. Sometimes the holidays accent what you don't have anymore.
To be perfectly honest, holidays were always a bit complicated in the Sweeney household. Christmas was probably my mother's favorite holiday. She wanted everything to be picture perfect. The tree, the lights, the ornaments all had to be just right. And, to go with the perfect decorations, she expected her family to be perfect as well. The joke we all made about this was that if my mother's plan was to have a perfect holiday, she married the wrong guy.
My father didn't have a favorite holiday. I think he enjoyed them all equally, mainly because he was able to spend time with his family. He didn't really care about how something looked around Christmas. This is where a lot of the conflict came about. They were relatively banal arguments. There would be a bit of back and forth but ultimately my father would concede, tasking me to help him in the middle of an Oswego December storm to put up lights. His misery was palpable but also hilarious. What's worse is every time he would get mad and you'd laugh at him, he'd somehow get angrier and, therefore, funnier. My father's plan was to relax and watch "White Christmas" while my mother wanted everything to look like "White Christmas".
There was always conflict and complications to plans. Things never quite worked out the way we expected them to, but, perhaps, they worked out the way they should have. If everything was perfect, maybe the screwy memories wouldn't stick out as much. Stories aren't stories without complications.
"It's a Wonderful Life" is all about deviations from plans. From a young age, George Bailey wanted to be an explorer. He had everything planned out for himself and life continually got in the way. Surely, living through both the Great Depression as well as World War II significantly complicated things, but even smaller events derailed his life in significant ways. "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."
After a while, George becomes resentful of what his life became. The poor man was walking the razor's edge for a long time before the main conflict in the story happens. I assume most people have seen the film before, but what a lot of people don't remember is how the film begins. It kinda takes a while before the movie that most people remember actually starts. It's almost two-thirds through the runtime.
What is the film trying to tell us?
The cynic in me wants to say that it is about settling. George had all of these plans to leave his hometown and globetrot. Instead, he begrudgingly takes over the family business, gets married, has a boatload of kids and eventually is accused of bank fraud because he allowed his aloof uncle to continue to work at a building and loan. Maybe if George put himself first, he could have pursued his dreams. Instead, he has to account for cash his uncle accidentally gave to the worst man in the city. George Bailey deserved better.
The optimist in me...
Hold on. Let me take a deep breath.
The optimist in me says George Bailey's life mattered to a lot of other people. In the sequence people remember most about the film, Bailey spends time in an alternate reality where he never existed. Everything is darker somehow. More foreboding. If the film up to this point was a drama, this sequence feels like the prototype to things like "The Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits". Everything is seedier because George doesn't exist.
The film is a classic for a reason. Top to bottom, all the performances are pitch perfect. There are so many things about the film that are in the cultural lexicon. But, is it a Christmas film? Aside from the fact that it takes place on Christmas, it's kind of not. Does that take anything away from it? Of course not. A film taking place on Christmas does not make it a Christmas movie. Even if that was the case, only the third act of "It's a Wonderful Life" takes place on Christmas. I would think that for a movie to qualify as a "Christmas movie", it would have to be about Christmas. For better or worse, "It's a Wonderful Life" isn't about Christmas or Christmas themes. It's about George Bailey's struggle. Just like "Die Hard" is about a terrorist attack. Just because this attack happens on Christmas doesn't make it a Christmas movie.
Another debate for another day.
What I'm saying is the film has been so closely associated with Christmas for so long that people tend to forget about most everything else about it. There are a lot of things going on in this film and maybe the most brilliant thing is you can view it from many different perspectives. The optimist and cynic inside me are in constant conflict because you can see it either way. The true test of a classic.
Director Capra was known for making films about the "everyman". The type of person you might pass on the street and not think twice about. That's what makes his films so relatable. Despite the fact most of Capra's films are 70+ years old, they are still relevant today.
As I said, it's easy to be cynical. Having hope takes work. Hope means taking your licks and still moving forward even if it's the last thing you want to do. We all have bad moments, but it's how we push forward that defines our character. Bravery isn't doing something reckless without thinking; it's being scared and doing it anyway because you have to. This holiday season has been inordinately rough for me, worse than normal. But, I can't give up. A few years from now, maybe even a few months, this will be a story I tell people. Whether or not they want to hear it is another situation entirely.
That said, I'm going into the New Year with something I don't often have: hope. I hope all of my loved ones have a great holiday, even the people I've lost touch with. I hope things turn around, not just for me but for the many people who are in a worse situation than I am. I hope people have hope, even when it's not en vogue.
Gross, isn't it? Like drinking orange juice after using mint toothpaste. Sometimes hope is all we have to get us through the night.
If all else fails, I can always claim my birthright and become comically miserable.
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Directed by Frank Capra
Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Travers, Thomas Mitchell, Gloria Grahame, Ward Bond, Beulah Bondi
Runtime: 130 minutes
MPAA Rating: Not Rated (contains thematic elements, smoking and some violence)
Rating (out of ****): ****
"It's a Wonderful Life" is available on Paramount+ with a subscription as well as on all streaming services to buy or rent. It is also available on DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K.
