It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life; fantasy drama, USA, 1946; D: Frank Capra, S: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Henry Travers, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond, Gloria Grahame


Angels in the shape of Galaxies observe the life of the kind George Bailey: as a young kid, he saved the life of his brother who fell into a lake, but remained deaf on one ear. When his father Peter died he had to take over his building and loan business in order to save the company, even though his own dream was to go to the city. He got married to Mary and they had four children, but was always in conflict with the evil tycoon Potter who wanted to buy the city and keep it poor for cheap labor force. When his uncle Billy loses 8,000 $ from the deposit, George loses hope in everything and thinks his whole life is a failure. He decides to commit suicide on Christmas by jumping off the bridge, but gets saved by angel Clarence who shows him how the world would look like without him. George changes his mind and his friends gather enough money for him.

Considered by many to be the ultimate Christmas film, "It's a Wonderful Life" is a quality made story of sacrifice, pain, redemption and joy at the end typical for those kind of optimistic films, even though it has a messy (or should we say experimental?) structure and unusual eccentricity—but maybe precisely that makes it modern even today. Already the opening is strange, since the camera pans above the night sky and shows two angels in the shape of Galaxies (!) observing the life of the kind George Bailey (James Stewart in a role of a lifetime), but some destined tragedies seem melodramatic and kitschy. Still, director Frank Capra cares for his characters by giving them a humane and humorous touch, and has a clever style: the scene in which George and Mary fall into a pool after the podium opens underneath them during a ball, but just continue to dance in the water, anyway, causing everyone else to join them in the pool is wonderful and comical at the same time. 

Equally fun is the sequence where the two of them walk outside, and then George asks if he is "talking too much", while some random guy yells from his porch: "Yes! Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death!" - "You want me to kiss her, ha?" - "Oh, the youth is wasted on the wrong people!" - "Hey, come back out here, Mister! I'll show you some kissing it will put hair back on your head!" Some bits are a bit clumsy, though, for instance the phone kiss scene or when the pharmacist slaps George as a kid. The fantasy part of the story comes very late in the story (some 100 minutes into the film!) and consists of the angel Clarence, in human form, showing the hero who wanted to commit suicide on Christmas how the world would have looked like without him, which became one of the icons of movie history, getting imitated a thousand times and definitely catapulting the film into a classic. After all the bitter and dark misadventures of the protagonist, the movie ends with a catharsis, as a pleasant and skillful ode to love and life when people unite for their collective goodness to be stronger than misery, even though some cynics might add that it is a too idealistic solution since it could have never happened in some Third World country, while others perceive it as subtly pessimistic since it shows that only a divine intervention could help the hero in the flawed society run by the rich. Nontheless, this finale is so magnificently enchanting and magically compassionate ("Remember, no man is a failure who has friends!") that it sends shivers down your spine.

Grade:+++