If you’re going to sell your film with the logline “the name you know, the story you don’t,” it’s fair for your audience to both assume and expect that you’ll be adding something to the already overdone “A Christmas Carol.” Ti West’s “Ebenezer” fails to meet that expectation, and lugs around a hearty bag of other sins with it to boot.
It seems reasonable to spare you a detailed synopsis of the film. As implied, there are no aspects of this story that you do not know. Ebenezer Scrooge (Johnny Depp) is a miser, Jacob Marley (Ian McKellen) dies first and haunts his only friend, three ghosts show up to scare Scrooge straight, he wakes up a changed man and everyone skips into the new year. There is a slight tweak to his final moments with Bob Cratchit (Rupert Grint), but it’s only noteworthy in the sense that there are simply no other real additions to the story to discuss.
Though there are no new tales told, “Ebenezer” had a second opportunity to shine. The script could sing; direction could find unexplored angles; an exceptional performance could crack open an aspect of a character audiences never dreamed of. West’s latest is guilty of no such justification.
A director shoulders a considerable amount of the blame when a story feels as unearned as that of “Ebenezer,” but Nathaniel Halpern’s screenplay does the film no favors. Its attempts at humor are all whiffs, leaving you laughing at the film in moments meant to play out in earnest. But its greatest sin is reliance on second-screen dialogue that has zero faith that its audience will be looking up from their phones to see whatever it is that’s unfolding on screen.
It’s a shame, because Andrea Riseborough looks quite cool as Christmas Past. Not as cool as Tramell Tillman as Christmas Present, though. If “Ebenezer” has a diamond in the rough, it’s the Emmy-winning “Severance” star. While his entire aesthetic as Present is one of the few visually engaging aspects of the film, it’s Tillman’s performance that makes him the stand-out character. The actor has always excelled at a quiet rage, and it’s exciting every time we get to see that bubbling wrath boil over as we do here.
“Ebenezer” makes it impossible not to address the Johnny Depp-shaped elephant in the room, and not just because of the decision to use the film as the actor’s soft relaunch into major studio films. Any “A Christmas Carol” adaptation is going to be hamfisted — It’s “A Christmas Carol!” But having a man with a 30-plus-year rap sheet scream “allow me my redemption” when he grows weary of the expectations of his repentance is a little much.
Do know that the issue with Depp’s performance isn’t the film’s heavy hand or the actor’s laundry list of scandals. You could go into “Ebenezer” not knowing a lick about Depp and still walk out of it wondering why you just had to watch Captain Jack Sparrow run around in an Ebenezer Scrooge costume. Depp has many exceptional roles across his filmography (one of which is, in fact, Jack Sparrow), but it’s been well over a decade since we’ve seen one. “Ebenezer” is doing nothing to buck that unfortunate trend.
Indeed, his Ebenezer performance cribs much from his Oscar-nominated turn as Jack Sparrow. The smirk that aids his delivery as Jack is (mostly) absent, but the cadence and bombastic oration remain the same. Why? Unclear.
When told well, any “A Christmas Carol” story can make you cry. “Ebenezer” posits early on, what if its title character were simply sad? It’s the same meat and bones as Dickens’ original novella, but its bloated script and profound lack of faith in its audience make a would-be emotional finale feel unearned. Sam Claflin’s utter shock as Scrooge’s nephew Fred almost gets an emotional response, but it flickers out as quickly as it’s sparked.
Meanwhile, everything about Scrooge’s final interactions with Cratchit feels off. Even the amiable Fred questions what could have possibly gotten into his uncle, but Bob Cratchit has no such response, taking Scrooge’s uncharacteristic generosity with little more than mild surprise.
There have been successful retellings of “A Christmas Carol,” and there will be more in the future. Far more adaptations, however, sit on a long list of forgotten attempts to cash in on the holiday box office. West’s bloated and tonally inconsistent film joins the latter, I’m afraid.
“Ebenezer” opens exclusively in theaters on Nov. 13.
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