Even Bill Murray can't make me like 'Scrooged'
An unpleasant, shrill mish-mosh.
On the Fridays leading up to Christmas, Chrisicisms will take a look at various film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
So, it’s time for a confession: I don’t like Scrooged.
This has baffled me for 30 years. I love Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Bill Murray is a national treasure. Richard Donner directed several films I like quite a bit, including Superman: The Movie and the Lethal Weapon franchise. By all accounts, this movie should be tailored to my interests.
But I’ve watched this movie about a half-dozen times and I think I just have to ‘fess up: I don’t like it. There are parts that work, but the overall product is an unpleasant tonal mess. The film seems terribly miscalibrated; I understand what Donner was going for, but he never quite succeeds.
A holiday humbug
Frank Cross is a high-ranking exec at the IBC television network. As the holiday approaches, Cross is preparing for his station’s live Christmas Eve broadcast of A Christmas Carol, and he’s in a foul mood. He fires a low-level associate (Bobcat Goldthwait) who questions his judgment, berates anyone who crosses his path, and ignores his assistant’s pleas to leave early to take her son to the doctor. Despite his riches and a humanitarian award (which he abandons in a cab), Frank is an egotistical, angry wretch.
Theoretically, he should be a fun wretch to watch because he’s played by Bill Murray, one of our most beloved comedians. Murray’s made a career of playing the smug, smartest guy in the room, but he’s somehow always maintained likability, often because there’s a twinkle in his eye that lets us know he’s in on the joke. In Scrooged, Donner seems to have asked Murray to dispense with the twinkle, and the character is vicious and hateful, without the safety net of charisma. Murray has played unlikable egoists before — I’d argue that his best performance, in Groundhog Day, is a better riff on this material. But we go with that character because enough of his snideness is balanced by the film acknowledging how absurd his pomposity is; in Scrooged, he’s just unlikable.
And I get it: Scrooge is a warped, odious man. That’s the point of the story. But in most versions of A Christmas Carol, the world Scrooged inhabits is sincere; it’s a parable in which Scrooge’s negativity is in stark contrast to everyone else. This film constantly rolls its eyes at the formula of Dickens’ tale, and asks us to laugh at misfortunes hoisted on innocents. John Glover plays an earnest exec gunning for Frank’s job; it’s meant to be funny that we watch him get hog-tied in the finale. We’re supposed to despise Frank’s behavior, but why are we then supposed to laugh at the physical pain inflicted on a network censor (whose big laugh is that she commits sexual assault on Glover)? Goldthwait’s character is the innocent victim of Cross’ egoism, but there are many gags in the film where we laugh at the indignities visited upon him. If this was simply a flippant parody, it might be funny. But there’s enough going on to suggest that Donner and Murray want us to be fully invested in Cross’ plight and moved by his transformation; it’s hard to take any of that seriously when the film keeps flipping the story the bird.
A very unmerry mish-mash
I don’t hate Scrooged, but I am deeply frustrated by it, mainly because there is a good movie somewhere in there. The thrust of Mitch Glazer and Michael O’ Donoghue’s script is a good one; certainly A Christmas Carol could stand a modern update, and there’s enough satire of the excesses of the entertainment world to draw some laughs (the film is never funnier than its opening minutes, in which we watch commercials for upcoming IBC Christmas productions, including The Night the Reindeer Died). The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future all are fine, particularly David Johanson as a scuzzy, time-traveling cabbie and Carol Kane, who steals the movie as the violent Ghost of Christmas Present. Goldthwait is really funny in his small role, although his third-act twist of shooting up the office has aged horribly.
There’s material here that could be funny, but in interviews Murray hinted that the script was rewritten to increase the romantic story between Frank and his long-lost love Claire (Karen Allen), who runs a homeless shelter. Allen is as winning as ever, and there’s real sweetness to the early love story between Frank and Claire, but it feels lost in a completely different movie, butting up poorly with the starker comedy. What’s more is that while Murray and Allen have a spark, their characters have no reason to wind up back together. Claire watches Frank berate his underlings and shout at the homeless; why in the world would she be moved enough to get back with him? Their past love story might have something there, but their rekindling romance is obligatory and forced; there’s a reason Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t get back together with his long-lost love, and it feels false to change things up.
The main fault of the film might be Donner’s direction. Like I said, he’s done films I like quite a bit, but melding the comedy and sweetness requires a deft hand and nuance. Donner’s too bombastic a filmmaker to navigate the shifting tones, and it probably would have been wiser for him to pick whether he wanted this to be comedy, horror or drama and just stick with it. Murray and Donner apparently feuded throughout the making of the film, with the director telling the comedian to keep going louder and bigger. It shows. This is a film without any modulation; everyone is angry and screaming, every note played is the loudest. The ghosts aren’t just spooky; they’re dirty, violent, disintegrating and nightmarish, which could work, but not when the film constantly veers back to slapstick. The humor is played at a shrill pitch but then the film tries to shift gears to sappiness on a dime, leaving the viewer with emotional whiplash. The film’s final act tries to go dark and nightmarish, but it also tries to veer back to the slapstick. A more visually nimble director, maybe Barry Sonnenfield or ‘80s Tim Burton, might have had a better handle on this material.
An almost-win
I realize I’m in the minority; people love Scrooged. I wonder how many have actually seen it in recent years, though, and how much of that affection is due to nostalgia and how much is due to a love of Murray. But I also kind of get it. As garish and unpleasant as the movie often is, Scrooged almost wins you over because it sends you out on a high.
The truth is, Murray sells the redemption. The film ends on a nearly 10-minute monologue where Cross waltzes on the set of A Christmas Carol and, on live television, rambles on and on about the joy he’s found. And it utterly works. Teary-eyed and charismatic, this is pure Bill Murray, preaching a sermon about holiday joy and it’s impossible not to be caught up in the moment. When he breaks the fourth wall during the end credits as the cast sings “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” it’s one of the great Bill Murray moments.
But it’s a Bill Murray moment, not a Frank Cross one. The truth is, Murray so keeps Frank wired in cynicism and sarcasm that I never buy the turnaround. Instead, the climax to Scrooged feels less like the redemption of a horrible man and more like Murray finally admitting defeat and abandoning the film to just celebrate the holiday with everyone else. It’s charismatic and effective, but narratively it’s just as broken as the rest of the film; Donner’s spent so much time crafting something ugly that I can’t believe it ever turns into something beautiful.
Again, there’s enough to like in Scrooged that I can’t say I hate it. Even when he’s detestable, Murray has some great lines. Kane is wonderful. Some of the effects are still fun. But one of my litmus tests for reviewing films is whether I can recommend this over other films. And I can’t. There are much better versions of A Christmas Carol. There are much better Richard Donner movies that take place at Christmas (Lethal Weapon). There are better films with Bill Murray in a similar role (Groundhog Day) and better Bill Murray holiday celebrations (A Very Murray Christmas). It might be best to leave this one with the ghost of Christmas past.
Interesting. I've only ever seen bits of this one -- enough to make me decide I didn't really want to see the whole thing.