Movie Review: The Man Who Invented Christmas

I felt like watching something for the holidays, but I was not in the mood for another corny Hallmark Holiday special so I scrolled though the movies available on Amazon Prime and decided on “The Man Who Invented Christmas”. This film, based on the book The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits by Les Standiford is a fascinating look at the author Charles Dickens and how he came up with his iconic Scrooge character and the story of A Christmas Carol.  

I found this movie captivating. What I enjoyed the most was the visualization of Dicken's writing process, and how the characters in his story reveal themselves to him.  The movie uses actors and actresses that interact with Dickens during his writing process, as he discovers the story that these characters share with him.  Dickens wrestles with some of his own inner demons as he envisions his character Scrooge battling with the Christmas spirits. 

As an author, I appreciated the ability to see into the mind and imagination of Dickens as he wrestles with the characters, and I felt his frustration as he was interrupted just as he was making progress on the story.  I find that my writing process is somewhat similar, thought not nearly as dramatic as Dickens is portrayed.  I can actually hear the dialogue in my head as my book characters interact, and my fingers sometimes struggle to keep up with the cascading thoughts as my imagination begins to swirl in a story.  I related to the frustration as a perfect piece of the story disappears from my brain because I was interrupted mid-thought. 

This movie was charming and at times chaotic, and it gave me a new and deeper love for A Christmas Carol. I hope that the ideas really did come to Dickens in the way the movie presented. I believe that all good authors draw upon their own experiences to add their unique voice to their writing. 

Before watching this movie I had no idea that Christmas was not widely celebrated until after the publication of this story, so while Dickens didn’t actually invent Christmas, he did help change how it was celebrated not just in England but across the United States and the rest of the world as well.  

I really enjoyed The Man Who Invented Christmas and I would recommend it highly to help you get into the holiday mood.