It's a Wonderful Life

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

This is officially the best Christmas film ever made. Made in 1946, it tells the story of a guy called George Bailey, played by the ever-dashing James Stewart, who reluctantly spends his life in the little town of Bedford Falls in New England and contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve before being distracted by his guardian angel, Clarence. George tells Clarence that it would have been better if he’d never been born, and of course Clarence decides to show George exactly what the world would have been like had he never existed.

The film touches on many Christmassy themes, but what resounds most with me is the idea that a man who never achieves his goals or gets what he wants can still have a wonderful life. George spends his whole life making sacrifices because his conscience tells him to: he never goes to college, he never travels, and he does a job he hates because no one else will do it. In every instance he kicks himself for giving in and letting himself get dragged down, but he’s so generous and kind that he sees everything through and makes an awful lot of other people’s lives much happier as a result of it. And what this means is that when George regrets ever having lived at all, Clarence is able to convince him of how important he is in the grand scheme of things.

It’s an uplifting movie. It ends with a family reunited, a happy little angel and a rendition of Auld Lang Syne. It’s the sort of movie you watch with mulled wine and a box of tissues. Or, at least, I do, because I’m disgustingly sentimental about old Hollywood films. It’s the sort of film that tries to change your perspective of life, and says, “Look carefully; it isn’t all that bad.”

Nearly every Hollywood movie made these days has a common theme: achieve your dreams. It’s a Wonderful Life is the story of a man who never achieved his dreams, but was still a worthwhile human being and managed to change the world for the better. Now there’s a happy message if ever there was one.

"You see George, you've really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away?"

42.

Supposedly the meaning of life. I’m not so sure. I think humanity has let itself down a wee bit. I was thinking the other day, we have wars and stuff. No other species do that, just like no other animals murder children or pollute the environment. I mean, I know cows do, but they can’t help it. Anyways. What I’m trying to say is that humans have a responsibility, as the most intelligent creatures on this planet, to act with a little integrity and look after it. Something we are failing at dismally (cue angry discussion about the oil spill).

Anyways. But then I thought, there’s good stuff too. Have you ever watched little kids finger painting? They get quite into it. It’s sort of cute. And music. Humans make the best music, in my humble opinion. Whales and dolphins do it OK but on the whole I tend to go with Ella Fitzgerald or REM. And warm summer evenings in the park with pizza and friends. Snowball fights and home-made birthday cards and catching leaves as they fall, amber and crimson, from trees in a dense forest all make life worth living. I remember sitting on a cliff top in Portugal watching the sun go down over the Atlantic. The ocean was blue and green and red and orange and gold all at once, and it really was something to see. Sometimes it’s pretty good to be human.

So as I was thinking about all this I made a resolution. I’m going to try to see good in everything and be happy about the little things in life. I’ve always found that being cheerful is much more fun than being sad. Whenever I feel grumpy or sorry for myself I’m going to think of something that makes me happy, like star gazing or Hampstead Heath or chocolate and banana crepes. Maybe along the way I’ll figure out the meaning of life. I’ll let you know if I get anywhere.happiness