It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Probably a good thing I didn’t read much about this beforehand, because I rarely like Christmas movies. Thankfully this is only a Christmas movie towards the end.
What I liked about this is how it is a concept movie, a type a movie we rarely see anymore. An angel needs its wings and Bailey needs to see his life from an outside perspective. I also appreciated how the angel is just a regular physical being. In a strange way, it reminded me of Kevin Smith’s Dogma - which also that had that concept-thing going with angels on Earth and life lessons to be learned.
The movie is just filled with charm and James Stewart is the perfect evergood hero. Everything is very black and white in terms of morals, and good guys and bad guys, but the framing of a fairytale makes it work anyways. The grinch in me kind of wants to point out that in the real world, it is still the Potters than win and the Baileys are crushed. At a surface level it might look to have an anti-capitalist message, but it is practically more like a rose-tinted version of the American dream and how the little man wins in the end by hard work and good values. The sad reality is somewhat different.
That doesn’t take anything away from this little cozy pocket universe with good things happening to good people in the end.
Rating: 4