It’s a Wonderful Life, the 1946 Christmas film by Frank Capra starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, remains a classic nearly a century later—and with good reason.
In the wake of societal and relational collapse seemingly at every turn, the message of the value of human life, of integrity, of community, of friendship, and of love, permeating the entire film, is more prescient than ever.
The explosion of online discussions of the film around Christmastime (more every year, it seems) clearly validates this.
People are starving for hope, for wholesomeness, and for the reminder of what is possible for our lives and communities. Capra accomplished this without either the traps of modern media or excessive sentimentality.
The story hinges around the story of George Bailey—played brilliantly by the familiarly-stuttering Stewart—whose adventurous drive haunts him from childhood. Due to his father’s unexpected death, however, George instead of traveling around the world, winds up continuing his father’s thinly succeeding loan business. While the business enables many families in Bedford Falls to obtain modest but dignified family homes, it is neither glamorous nor lucrative.
The undercurrent of the film is that this business serves as the backbone to the joyful, peaceful, and safe environment of the town. George stays in Bedford Falls to preserve this critical artifact, marries the lovely and virtuous Mary Hatch, and starts a family and the grind at the office.
In a turn of events, after many years of challenges, critical funds disappear around Christmastime. This event leaves the loan business on the brink of bankruptcy and George wrestling with the possibility of jail time and ruin.
In a moment of desperation, realizing that his life insurance is substantive, he begins to jump off a bridge—only to be comically stopped by a junior angel, Clarence. Echoing themes from Dickens’ A Christmas Story, thus begins the disturbing alternate-timeline plot where George is allowed to see how life would be without him.
What rises to the surface throughout is the absolute, irreplaceable particularity of each human person.
We see this in the life of George, but also in the characters around him, and especially in Mary Hatch. In the alternate timeline George experiences, Mary never marries; the audience infers, correctly, that no one could have ever been George for her except George.
The film is a masterpiece due to its handling of real human desperation and suffering paired beautifully with lightness, comedy, and innocence. It effectively inspires the audience to recognize their own inherent dignity and value, and aids in focusing on the deepest truest things—such as the film’s well-known line: “No man is a failure who has friends.”
I rarely re-watch films, but It’s a Wonderful Life has been a near-yearly favorite for me since childhood. Even among film aficionados and Oscar-nominated filmmakers, whom one might presume to have more “sophisticated” tastes, the story remains an undeniable favorite and all-time standard for its medium.
beautyrebuild.com 