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We go to the darkness under the surface of a holiday classic.

It’s A Wonderful Life

There are people who have told me they don’t like It’s a Wonderful Life because it’s too sentimental or too corny. I’m mystified by such remarks to be perfectly honest. I think, for the most part, It’s a Wonderful Life is, if not a dark film then certainly a somber one.

Consider the life of George Bailey: what he hasn’t given up, sacrificed or compromised in his existence he’s had taken away from him in cruel twists of fate. He lost his hearing saving his brother as a child. He gave up going to university and his dreams of travel at various points in order to stay in Bedford Falls, New York and run a Building and Loan that the townsfolk, most of whom are one bad cheque away from financial collapse, need to survive. George Bailey is a man who, for all his standing up for the little guy, lives his life with a lot of anger, disappointment and resentment under the surface.

And, as an actor, Jimmy Stewart gets this. George Bailey is his finest performance on film. People think of Jimmy Stewart as an aw shucks nice guy, but watch this (and Vertigo) and you realize his real genius is in using that breezy demeanor as a façade—underneath he positively seethes. The scene where Stewart as George finally kisses Mary (Donna Reed) while listening to a phone call is stunning because before doing so George lets out all his anger and frustration with a life stuck in Bedford Falls and a future full of shrinking horizons even though he’s found a girl he’s in love with.

And after this explosion he just suddenly surrenders. It’s a scene that’s at once sensual, heartbreaking and romantic at the same time.

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George Bailey’s life is full of those moments where he does the best thing, the right thing, but at a cost. One of the best scenes in the movie where he keeps the scared townsfolk together during a run on the bank—even though he gives up the money for his honeymoon trip to do it

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And yet for all those triumphs, and sweet moments full of pride, George is a man who is losing himself piece by piece. And then comes a day when George stands to lose everything and suddenly it all becomes unstuck. His despair spirals to the point where George comes to the brink of suicide. And this is where the people who think this is purely sentimental, uplifting fare miss an important fact: that George would get to this state has to be believable, and it is.

As the ending of the film shows, practically everyone in Bedford Falls is prepared to come to George’s aid in his moment of need…but George is incapable of seeing the possibility of it. Because, deep down, George believes the odious Mr. Potter when he says that George is worthless. And then a lifetime of anger and resentment finally erupts—he has a violent fit and, appropriately, trashes the architectural designs and models that were meant to be his life’s work but became just a hobby—and it not only disturbs his family, it disturbs us watching too.

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The arrival of bumbling trainee angel Clarance and his changing reality to a world where George was never born makes the film even darker. The curious thing about Pottersville, as Bedford Falls is now known, is that Potter is never actually seen. We don’t have to because the whole town has adopted his character and become cynical, mean and self-centred. It’s positively bleak.

That, for me, is one of the more important messages of It’s a Wonderful Life: that each of us have the power to influence and shape our community. It’s not that all of George’s sacrifices made for a better world now—that just surrenders George’s disappointments to a cosmic retrospect—it’s that those sacrifices and choices were part and parcel of the truly wonderful life he was living. Far from being a black and white morality play, this is a surprisingly adult approach. But director Frank Capra is too smart a filmmaker for anything else. It’s a Wonderful Life is a movie with lots of ambivalent shadings—even Potter doesn’t get punished for absconding with the Bailey Building and Loan’s money.

If all this makes It’s a Wonderful Life a sentimental film, then so be it. And maybe, by the way I get choked up year after year watching the end of it, it is. But I would say it is sentiment that is honest and well earned. That’s something to remember as we try to keep our Bedford Falls from becoming Pottersville.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErrzjGCi3gY&NR=1]