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The Rambling Writer Review: “It’s a Wonderful Life”
Dec. 27th, 2025 06:03 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
bookviewcafe_rss_feedIn which I finally watch the classic Frank Capra film “It’s a Beautiful Life.”
(NOTE: Plot spoilers ahead)
When I was growing up, my family somehow missed some important cultural events – I remember returning to grade school after certain weekends to hear all the other kids raving about how wonderful it was watching “The Wizard of Oz” once more on its annual showing on TV. (This was in the days long before DVDs or streaming, when you had to wait for one of the few stations to air a film.) I never saw that movie until I was probably in my 30s. With various stints living abroad in sometimes remote areas, I also missed a lot of touchstones like watching “Steinfeld” or the OJ Simpson trial. And I was living in Ecuador when the news filtered to me about Lorraine Bobbit – an Ecuadorian – “bobbing” her abusive American husband’s penis. I was glad I wasn’t a man, since locals angry about her arrest were talking about taking revenge on any gringo male they could catch.
But I digress. Thor shouldn’t have been so surprised this week when we decided to watch a Christmas movie, and I mentioned that I’d never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the Frank Capra film starring Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey and Donna Reed as his wife Mary. “That’s it – we’re watching it,” he decided.
I had little knowledge about the film, just assuming it would be a sort of schlocky, sentimental and dated story. And it sort of is all that. But I was surprised to discover that it was also quirky and funny, with a charming glimpse of earlier 1900s American culture and some engaging characters like the evil foreclosing banker Mr. Potter (an excellent Lionel Barrymore) and the goofy guardian angel Clarence (Henry Travers). Thor even teared up a bit when George Bailey as a boy (played by Robert J. Anderson) saves the grief-stricken pharmacist from accidentally poisoning a patient.
And when the final bell on the Christmas tree rang to herald an angel earning his wings, we were both sniffling.
So, if you too somehow have managed to miss seeing the movie, I recommend it. It is enjoyably silly in the early parts, with a wacky high-school graduation party (of course, the actors are way too old for teenagers, since the story stretches from pre-Depression to post-World War II, but that’s okay). George and Mary are smitten at first sight (though she’s carried a torch for him since grade school), and really cut a rug doing the Charleston – until with a weird twist the dance floor opens to tumble everyone into a swimming pool.
And George’s memory-challenged Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) is a sweet clown who brings his pet raven to the family-business office, and also has other birds, a pet squirrel, and a monkey at home. There’s also a goat riding in a family car.
The plot turns darker halfway through, as George becomes increasingly trapped in others’ expectations of a “good life,” when he has yearned his whole life for travel, adventure, and building something important. “I’m shakin’ the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then, I’m comin’ back here to go to college and see what they know. And then I’m gonna build things.”
It’s his own decency and need to save others that really sentence him to stay in small-town Bedford and run the family building and loan business that is the David to Mr. Potter’s evil Goliath. The theme is not subtle, but Stewart does a good job of portraying the inner conflicts and outer crises that finally make him snap and decide on suicide. He is disturbingly believable when he furiously lashes out at his uncle, wife, and kids in the darkest scenes. Bumbling angel-in-training Clarence is sent to earth to stop him from flinging himself into the frozen river on Christmas, but George still wishes he’d never been born. Clarence then shows him all the damage that would have ensued if that were the case, and a Christmas miracle saves the day, and the community.
Fair enough, and a happy ending is not a bad thing. “Count your blessings.” But the message that personal dreams aren’t important when weighed against the needs of the community – that George just needs to accept that serving everyone except himself is the highest good – didn’t sit that well with me. (Apparently not with the FBI at the time, either, since they investigated the film for Communist/Socialist messaging that questioned big business.) What did the world miss out on when George gave up his dreams of college and ambitions to accomplish great things, tying himself to the demands of a growing family and so many needy neighbors? I related more to the young George (a talented boy actor), in his excitement and zest to see the world as he waved an early copy of “National Geographic,” and his young-adult determination to escape the “marriage trap” before his aborted departure for college. (Stopped by another of the family/business crises that kept trapping him.) Maybe there was another way he could have had a wonderful life.
But don’t mind my cavils – your mileage may vary. Enjoy the movie! Happy holidays and a better new year to us all!
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and an International Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). It’s also a love letter to the stunning beauty of her native Pacific Northwest wild places. Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
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