The Man Who Invented Christmas
Bleecker Street Media | Release Date: November 22, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
11
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 23, 2017
Dan Stevens turns in a vibrant comic performance as Charles Dickens in this drama about writerly inspiration that plays like a smarter Shakespeare in Love. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinNov 21, 2017
The Man Who Invented Christmas is a jaunty, amusing patchwork of truths, half-truths and pure fiction that cleverly combine to recount the story of the whirlwind creation of Charles Dickens' famed novella "A Christmas Carol." Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleDanielle WhiteNov 22, 2017
I tried to imagine what it would be like watching this movie if I were unfamiliar with the source material. The story may be a bit strange, but certainly no less touching. That’s the thing about classics: Each reiteration, if done properly, puts us closer to the story at heart. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorNov 24, 2017
Director Bharat Nalluri sets a pace as punishing as the title character's – the film is mainly a quick romp – even if he does indulge in some unnecessarily Dickensian melodrama along the way. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 23, 2017
The Man Who Invented Christmas is good at its feel-iest, a beloved but stale tale retold with novelty while revealing an interesting rest of the story. Let’s hope it becomes a perennial like so many versions before, with Plummer’s Scrooge as a yearly gift. Read full review
75
Washington PostSusan WloszczynaNov 22, 2017
As the man who would inspire the character of Scrooge — first spied at night in a cemetery attending a threadbare burial for his business partner, while uttering, “Bah, humbug!” — Christopher Plummer is well chosen. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 22, 2017
It’s filled with so many theatrical flourishes and fantastical touches, one can envision this material as a work for the stage, or even an animated film. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 22, 2017
Rarely has a movie ever captured the importance of a writer’s having unbroken concentration in order to work. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldNov 21, 2017
It’s a pleasant Christmas-season offering; both mild (read: family-friendly) and sweet. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaNov 24, 2017
An altogether warm, sharp, and unobjectionable family holiday film. Read full review
70
VoxEmily VanDerWerffNov 23, 2017
“What my more curmudgeonly colleague misses,” said the ghost with a smile, “is this film’s potential for great camp enjoyment, especially thanks to its bevy of perfectly fine performances." Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckOct 29, 2017
There are many pleasures along the way, including the effective evocation of Victorian-era London. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeOct 29, 2017
In addition to being a rather fine addition to the Christmas-movie canon, the film marks a useful teaching tool — a better option for classroom screenings than any of the previous “Carol” adaptations, once students have finished reading the novella. Read full review
67
The PlaylistWill AshtonNov 23, 2017
Too mediocre to become a new classic, it’s easy to be dismissive of the film’s cheap pleasures, but through its good heart and giving spirit, The Man Who Invented Christmas does, in part, capture what makes the holiday season such a joyous time. Read full review
67
The Film StageJared MobarakNov 23, 2017
Stevens excels at playing put upon characters mired in self-doubt with both heavy drama and infectious humor (see Legion for another great example). He deftly pulls off the necessary instantaneous shift from frustration to epiphany very well. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChristian HolubNov 22, 2017
Again, we know the beats by heart, but there’s a reason A Christmas Carol has been told every which way from Muppets to Disney. You can’t help getting swept up in it, even if you’ve heard it all before. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 28, 2017
It’s “A Christmas Carol” riff for those who already know the story, and entirely too on-the-nose for its own good. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoNov 22, 2017
Consistently intriguing as all the lit-process tidbits are, the film struggles to mesh footnotes and somber notes. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonNov 22, 2017
Working from a screenplay by Susan Coyne, director Bharat Nalluri maintains a pace that brings to mind a wagon loaded down with too many Christmas trees. Though the movie has a great look, it’s short on storytelling magic. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonNov 21, 2017
The movie is antic, bouncing frantically from one story element to another, and poor Stevens, looking electrocuted and sleep-deprived, plays Dickens like the Man Who Invented Meth. Read full review
60
EmpireDan JolinDec 4, 2017
A lightweight, tinselly film with some nice touches and appealing performances, though it never lands its darker moments. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelNov 23, 2017
It lays on the pathos, moralizing and forced whimsy thicker than figgy pudding, but it’s still entertaining, heart-warming family fare, thanks in large part to charmingly sincere performances. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe DziemianowiczNov 22, 2017
In the end, The Man Who Invented Christmas is an enjoyable enough diversion. It’s no humbug. Just pleasantly ho-hum. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlNov 21, 2017
The movie — based on Les Standiford’s novel — is pleasantly simpleminded, often assembled from parts of other movies. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyNov 22, 2017
Christmas has some good points going for it (e.g., Plummer’s grumpy, rascally Scrooge, who’d be great in a straight adaptation), but its portrayal of Dickens’ biography and family life is resoundingly dull, apart from some tense notes in Pryce’s performance. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 22, 2017
The way it has been presented, with forced and artificial junctions, keeps the viewer at arms-length from the story and creates questions about the historicity of some scenes. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiNov 22, 2017
A saccharine stab at a new holiday perennial that tries to fuse the classic Yuletide yarn with a “Shakespeare In Love”-style literary origin story and manages to let both of them down, not to mention a performance by Christopher Plummer as Ebenezer Scrooge that deserves a much better showcase than the one provided here. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichOct 29, 2017
A well-intentioned but wearisome jolt of prefab holiday cheer. Read full review
50
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeOct 29, 2017
As a portrait of an author on the verge of a breakthrough, this is a run-of-the-mill, occasionally clumsy biopic; as for contextualizing Christmas, it never explains how it functioned before Dickens and only briefly mentions how it changed after him. Read full review
40
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergNov 21, 2017
Brightly lit and anchored by Mr. Stevens’s infectious, live-wire performance, the film, directed by Bharat Nalluri (“Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day”), nevertheless proceeds like a television holiday special, designed to distract children while winking at their parents. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonOct 29, 2017
The more that Nalluri tries to connect Dickens’ personal breakthroughs to those of his fictional character, the less authentic it feels. Inadvertently, this forgettable bauble ends up illustrating just how rare and precious true inspiration is. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineEric HendersonNov 21, 2017
Since “humbug” is already spoken for by Ebenezer Scrooge, “opportunistic” would be the most apt word for The Man Who Invented Christmas. Read full review
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