The Man Who Invented Christmas

A film about how Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843. Dickens is in trouble at that point: his last three books have not sold, his publishers do not trust him, his household is expensive and his father keeps bringing debts. He decides to write a new book in six weeks and publish it at his own cost. The idea is to make the writing visible: the moment Dickens finds a character, they walk into the room and start talking to him, objecting, trying to turn the story their way. Scrooge is the most stubborn, and the writer's fight with him is at the centre. The second strand is Dickens's relationship with his own father. As a child he had to work in a factory because his father was imprisoned for debt, and Scrooge's meanness and his father's extravagance come from the same wound. Dan Stevens plays Dickens, Christopher Plummer plays Scrooge and Jonathan Pryce plays the father. Bharat Nalluri directed. A pleasant choice for anyone looking for a Christmas film or interested in the process of writing. For a viewer wanting historical accuracy, the writing of the book is compressed for effect and the characters talking is entirely invention.