Scrooge & Marley (2012)

This was one of a handful of adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" that were on my list when I binged fifty or so of these back in 2022, but I was unable to get to it at the time. I've been meaning to rectify that since, but it never seemed to be on the right streaming services at the right times. Well, that finally changed, so at long last I was able to sit down and watch it.

The movie is quite a bit more ambitious than most low-budget versions. The story is set in what was then the present-day, song and dance numbers are added (though the music is diegetic, save for when the source is explicitly supernatural), and the majority of characters - included Scrooge himself - are gay. Several characters are gender-flipped to accommodate this: nephew Fred is now niece Freda, Belle becomes Bill, and so on. Sequences and minor characters are added to expand on this idea, however the core of the story is unchanged. In fact, in several respects this adheres closer to Dickens's blueprint than most modern versions.

I'll get to all of that, of course, but first we should probably cover whether the movie's any good. And, as is fairly common in this budget range, the answer boils down to another question: "Compared to what?"

For what it's worth, Scrooge & Marley fares better against competition than other extremely low-budget spins on this story I've encountered, though it's worth noting this likely had a higher budget than the three movies I just linked to (my guess is it cost more than all three combined). That said, it was still funded through IndieGoGo, so it was probably in the same ballpark. Regardless, some elements are executed at a level closer to "big movies" than micro-budgeted productions. Things like sound mixing and lighting are handled professionally, which may sound unremarkable, but that sort of thing isn't a given with these kinds of movies. Likewise, the direction, credited to Richard Knight, Jr. and Peter Neville, is quite good.

But where this really shines is its cast, which includes some relatively impressive names, including Megan Cavanagh, Tim Kazurinsky, and narration from Judith Light (Angela from "Who's the Boss?" - kids, ask your parents to ask someone even older). The actor playing Scrooge, David Pevsner, does great work in the lead role, instilling the character with more depth and complexity than most performers bother with. The musical numbers, with occasional exception, are also well integrated, performed well, and generally effective. This does a good job using music and song to develop tone and setting.

Unfortunately, you know there's a "but" coming. While this was able to overcome its budget limitations in a number of areas, set design and visual effects aren't on the list of wins. You're left with "winter sequences" where you can clearly see cotton standing in for snow, stages being used as clubs, and ghost effects that look decades out of date.

All of which is to be expected, of course. At the end of the day, what matters is going to be the script (credited to Timothy Imse, Richard Knight Jr., and Ellen Stoneking), and that's... well... it's complicated.

I'd argue the new elements are quite good. There was a great deal of thought put into how the classic novel could be expanded while remaining faithful to the core ideas and narrative, and it pays off. The additional backstory actually succeeds where Dickens didn't and provides Scrooge with a past that explains who he becomes. Likewise, the movie invokes the '70s club culture and the AIDS epidemic of the '80s cleverly, weaving these into the story in ways that feel like natural extensions.

Where things get dicey is the dialogue. It's not so much that this aspect of the writing is bad as it's wrong. On numerous occasions, lines that feel like they belong on stage are wedged into the movie. The result is unnatural and off-putting. Film is capable of communicating in more subtle ways than the stage, which lacks tools such as close-ups of actors' expressions and edits: the script just doesn't seem like it was calibrated for the right medium.

So, is it worth seeing? Depends on what you expect from it. At its budget, this is a well-executed version of what it sets out to be: an updated version of A Christmas Carol that recontextualizes the story to center on the history and culture of gay Americans. It's not, however, being made with the resources needed to produce a polished, spectacle-heavy film, and - as mentioned above - there are issues with the script.

Of course in 2012 there were no big-budget gay Christmas movies, which is apparently what inspired this. However, that's no longer the case. There aren't nearly as many Christmas movies with queer leads as there should be, but they're no longer unheard of. Hell, I'd argue several of the best Christmas movies of the past decade feature queer leads. I'm certainly not saying the existence of a handful of big-budget queer Christmas movies negates low-budget productions or that any of these should be in some sort of competition with each other, but the flaws become harder to ignore when something isn't in a class by itself.

Still, it's not like there are any Hollywood-produced versions of A Christmas Carol centered around LGBTQ+ characters, so there's still a niche here. If that sounds like something you'd enjoy, by all means check this out. It can't entirely transcend the limitations of its budget, but it comes a hell of a lot closer than you'd expect (and delivers some great moments and a compelling character arc at the same time).

Now that we're through the review proper, let's dig into the nerdy shit only Christmas junkies care about: how this fits in the tradition of A Christmas Carol adaptations.

It starts in a similar way to the 2019 BBC miniseries, of all things, with a sequence catching us up on Jacob Marley in the afterlife. Both establish that Marley is suffering and introduce the possibility of him obtaining some sort of salvation (or at least reduced punishment) if he can save Scrooge.

Rather than a counting house, we catch up with Scrooge in the back office of a club he owns, which among other things gives them a chance to introduce music to the mix. In a particularly effective move, they have a couple performing a parody of "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen," a song mentioned by Dickens at a similar point in the narrative.

Scrooge (still named Ebenezer, though mainly going by "Ben") is fairly similar in personality to the original, turning away charities collecting for the queer community, mistreating his employees, and refusing to spend Christmas with his only living relative. Interestingly, it's more his niece's wife who reaches out than Freda, which gives the movie an opportunity to develop both as characters - as I said before, the dialogue is awkward, but that doesn't mean the writing is bad.

Naturally, that night Marley shows up with the usual warning. We also get a few moments from the original text often skipped, including the procession of spirits outside his window (though this is a mixed blessing, as the effects aren't quite where they need to be).

Cue the first ghost, who takes the form of an employee Scrooge fired earlier in the night. The ghost uses drugs to teleport them back in time. We meet Scrooge as a young man attending a private school, where he expects to spend the holidays alone until his sister catches up to him to bring him home (all more or less in keeping with the original). Before leaving, however, he invites his "friend" from school to stop by.

We then get the first new sequence, introducing us to his father, a stern and cruel man. Scrooge's aforementioned friend comes over, and the pair make their way to Scrooge's room. However, Scrooge's father catches them together and throws Scrooge out.

Cut to Scrooge meeting Marley, who makes Scrooge his partner and brings him to Fezziwig's, a nightclub owned (naturally) by Fezziwig, a hedonistic but good-natured man who views life as a sort of extended bacchanalian celebration. While this is very different in tone to the Fezziwig of the book, I'd argue it's keeping with the same archetype. Fezziwig was always sort of a throwback to Saturnalian traditions - this is simply amplifying the subtext.

It's also placing the story in history. The celebratory nature of Fezziwig and his club now refer to the optimism and love of the 1970s, rather than pre-industrial Britain eluded to in the original story. In both cases, a place and time unprepared for rather frightening changes ahead.

We also introduce Scrooge to the love of his life, Bill. Their romance develops, and they move in together. At the same time, we see Scrooge becoming obsessed with money and success, which he desires as protection against a world he can't trust. When his sister dies in childbirth, he turns to Bill for love and support, though this introduces a potential wedge: Bill promises to love Scrooge unconditionally, something Scrooge seems to intuit will be tested.

Eventually, Marley and Scrooge make enough money to elbow Fezziwig out and take over his business. While Fezziwig symbolizes the optimism of the 1970s, Scrooge and Marley transform into the jaded opportunists of the '80s. In Scrooge's mind, he's a survivor, doing what's necessary to succeed in a world that won't help him. When Bill finally walks away, Scrooge fully embraces his cynicism: if everyone is destined to leave him, why should he trust in anything but himself and the resources he needs to stay alive. If others aren't able to save themselves, it's a sign of weakness.

We learn that, unlike in the original, Bill died between then and the present. The movie never tells us directly what occurred, but the implication is he was a victim of the AIDS epidemic.

This wraps the past section and lands us well past the halfway point of the movie. The Ghost of Christmas Present (Cavanagh) shows up soon after with a musical number in the form of a music video, after which she brings Scrooge on the usual rounds. He sees his niece's party, sees the game of charades where he's the butt of the joke, and hears her wife defend him (like I said - they shifted a lot of Fred's stuff to her, which creates an interesting dynamic). Scrooge is then taken to the Cratchit residence, where Bob and his husband have adopted several children, including the sick Tim.

The end of this includes a couple elements most versions skip, including the detail of Present growing old over their time together and a surprisingly faithful version of the bit with Want and Ignorance. With all that out of the way, the dying Present gives way to the Future.

The costume for Christmas Yet to Come is interesting. They kept the all black and added green and red eyes, all in a form reminiscent of burlesque. The spirit brings Scrooge to his club, where his employees are celebrating his death with a song, which on its own pays off doing this as a musical (not that it wasn't already working - it's just a really effective beat in the story). The movie makes the usual rounds, cycling in the charity workers in place of the couple, then adapting the pawn broker, Cratchit, and eventually the graveyard sequences with only minor alterations.

The last Stave follows the story perhaps a bit too closely - the "joke" at Cratchit's expense comes off a bit too harsh, but I like most of the rest of the choices. The "what day is it" moment at the start is nice (he turns on the local news, rather than shouting out of the window), and the various updates generally work well. His reconciliation with his family is particularly effective, mostly because David Pevsner is really good at this stuff. At the end, we learn he even finds love again and starts a relationship with one of the charity collectors.

Ultimately, you're left with the sense the people who made this really cared about the project, and further that enough of them were professionals in the entertainment industry to deliver something above their means. But there's always going to be a limit to what you can do in a movie without a great deal of resources, and this butts up against that ceiling in the visuals (though, again, I want to stress that the presence of people who know how to stage, light, and shoot a scene makes a difference).

The effort placed into the story makes a difference, as well. There was clearly a great deal of thought put into the way the classic could be restructured around the history of gay culture and the fight for equality. The Saturnalian depiction of the 70's as this version of Christmas Past giving way to the cynicism left behind by the Aids epidemic of the 80's and 90's is in effect folded into Scrooge's narrative. His choice to embrace love, community, and hope to avoid a future of isolation becomes a symbolic path for the community's future. The subtext here is extremely clever.

I'd love to say this was the miraculous exception where a movie with virtually no money turns in something on par with a big-budget production, but that's not the case. However, what they managed is still a hell of an achievement and a solid take on the source material.