Film Review: The Man Who Invented Christmas (7/10)

Where Holiday Magic Meets Writer’s Struggle.

When a movie opens with the promise that it’s exploring how the world got its modern Christmas, you ought to sit up straight. The Man Who Invented Christmas does exactly that and for better and worse, it delivers. Directed by Bharat Nalluri, the film tracks Charles Dickens (played by Dan Stevens) during the frantic six-week period in 1843 when he hammered out what would become A Christmas Carol. In a mix of desperation, inspiration, grief, and imagination, Dickens attempts to save his failing career and winds up inventing holiday tradition.

The story doesn’t walk you through the publishing world with the grit of a biopic or the revisionist edge of modern historical drama. Rather, it swings for grandeur, nostalgia, and charm, sometimes landing, sometimes slipping. Think of it as a holiday card version of history: warm, bright, a little sentimental and not always historically faithful.

STORY (1.5/2)

The core narrative, Dickens battling writer’s block and the pressure of financial ruin, then conjuring up characters like Scrooge, Tiny Tim, and Bob Cratchit, is effective and emotionally engaging. Nalluri and screenwriter Susan Coyne take the real‐life desperation of a failed author and spin it into a creative fever dream. Characters from A Christmas Carol manifest in Dickens’s imagination and intersect with his real life, blurring the lines between reality and fiction in a way that reflects the madness and magic of creation.

That said, here’s the tradeoff, the film doesn’t do much with the darker undercurrents of Dickens’s personal life or the harsh socioeconomic realities of Victorian England. The poverty and desperation that helped shape A Christmas Carol are referenced, but they remain peripheral. The film often chooses warmth over weight, cheer over challenge. Critics have pointed to this imbalance, charming as the film is, it risks leaving the deeper implications half-spoken.

Still, if you approach it less like a documentary and more like a fairytale origin story, the film’s heart makes up for its moral and historical shortcuts.

VISUALS (1/2)

The movie embraces Victorian England with all the decorative trimmings: gas-lit streets, ornate houses, threadbare bookshops turned festive, snow-spattered windows, and cozy hearths. The production design and costumes work hard to sell yuletide charm, and cinematographer’s choices lean into warm tones, soft glow, and seasonal contrast, a look that evokes gingerbread-house nostalgia more than cold reality.

There’s also a theatrical flourish in the way Dickens’s imagined characters shift between ghostly visions and tangible interactions. The transitions can feel theatrical, more storybook than stark realism, but they fit the tone. This is a Christmas fable before it’s historical truth.

It’s not entirely flawless: the gloss sometimes dulls the edges you want a Dickens adaptation to scratch at. The world sometimes feels too clean, too festive, as if nostalgia overrode grit. But as a holiday-season film, the visuals get you where it counts.

SOUND (1.5/2)

The score is warm and spirited, fitting comfortably into the holiday atmosphere without ever overwhelming the scenes. It reinforces the emotional beats with a subtle hand and uses classic orchestral textures that echo the timelessness of Dickens’s writing.

Where the sound design loses a bit of ground is in its restraint. Everything is competent and clean, but it lacks memorable moments that could have elevated the film further. Still, the audio world never hinders the experience. It simply delivers what is needed and steps out of the way.

CHARACTER (1.5/2)

Dan Stevens brings energy, obsession, and neurotic charm to his version of Dickens — more scruffy creator on a deadline than saintly wordsmith. His desperation, hope, guilt, and final joy register clearly. It’s a performance that works because it feels human. He’s not the great author we worship — he’s the flawed, frantic man who needed a miracle. Reviews have praised this portrayal for making Dickens “feel like a modern creative” even while dressed in 19th-century coat and cravat.

Then there’s Christopher Plummer as the embodiment of Scrooge; exuberant, grotesque, and somehow endearing. This is Scrooge as ghost, as figment, as proto-stereotype, yet given enough humanity to walk the line between horror and heartbreak. That duality, horror and hope, bitterness and redemption, is loaded into his every glare and sneer.

Supporting cast members like the Dickens family, friends, acquaintances, orbit around with warmth, eccentricity, and humanity. Their interactions serve to flesh out Dickens’s world, remind us of what he’s risking, and why the holiday he invents matters not just to him, but to everyone who reads his story.

FACTOR X (1.5/2)

The film’s special quality comes from how personal it makes the act of writing feel. Instead of treating Dickens like a distant icon, it shows him as a vulnerable man wrestling with doubt, family tension, money problems, childhood trauma, and artistic pressure. There is something universally relatable about watching him chase an idea while everything in his life falls apart.

Where the film takes a small step back is in its pacing and runtime. A tighter cut in the middle would have given certain emotional beats more impact. A few narrative threads also deserved further exploration. These moments do not diminish the film’s charm, but they do keep it just short of greatness.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is a warm and wonderfully crafted film that celebrates imagination, persistence, and the messy beauty of creation. Dan Stevens and Christopher Plummer bring the story to life with heartfelt performances, and the visual world is rich with holiday magic. It is not perfect, but it is absolutely delightful and an easy recommendation for anyone who loves Christmas, storytelling, or the strange journey of the creative mind.

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

Where to Watch: Amazon Prime | HBO Max