This bland, needless retelling of the story behind Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is too wrapped up in the banal intricacies of London’s publishing world to entertain children, and too desperately twee to entertain their parents. Downtown Abbey’s Dan Stevens works hard to enliven his Dickens and brings a certain energy to the role, but the character lacks specificity. Here, Dickens is a cliched sketch of threadbare literary tropes (manic writer genius with daddy issues and class anxieties). There are a few bright spots, like Christopher Plummer’s Scrooge, but with its too-bright visuals and laboured dialogue, at best, the film belongs on television.
