A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1999) *** I admit that I expected Patrick Stewart's Scrooge to be kind of a space guy (see how one bad career move can be definitive?). Instead they play the feel closer to Charles Dickens' original (in letter and spirit) than any other Scrooge I've seen. Stewart does a brilliant job portraying the elder Scrooge's profound sense of loss in reviewing the realities, and potentialities, of his youth. But is this going to come home to the viewers who need it most, or are they going to suffer from the lost years at the expense of molted ideals? Stewart's scenes with Desmond Barrit are rapid fire in the sense of personal cataclysm and catharsis, and that can't be easy to do. Stewart's Scrooge has gone wrong, and there's nothing endearing about him, yet he maintains the single thread of dignity of making even difficult efforts to comply with the demands of being a gentleman. It's easy to see, then, the social criticisms that were so native to Dickens. If you can fulfill all of the requirements, and still be...that...surely there's work to be done. It's a great tale and one that's been told a million times, a simple tale so multi-faceted that in the hands of the right actors it can be manipulated to reveal even new light.
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