In 1946, when ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ was released, it opened to mixed reviews and flopped at the box office. 28 years later, a clerical error turned it into a Christmas classic. When its copyright period ended the studio that owned it failed to apply for the second time. So, American television studios picked it up and these royalty-free broadcasts changed the movie’s fate. The movie revolves around George Bailey(James Stewart) who dreams of leaving his life in Bedford Falls, travelling the world instead. ‘I’m going out exploring someday. You watch’, says a young George(Bobby Anderson) to a young Mary Hatch(Jean Gale and later by Donna Reed), who would later become his wife, at the beginning of the movie. But he gets repeatedly bogged down.
The movie is supposed to be about resilience in the face of adversity. However, when I watched it for the first time, I was horrified and surprised that this was a Christmas movie. I was expecting an oversentimental, cheesy movie. But contrary to the popular opinion, the majority of the movie is quite dark. George has to relinquish his dreams of going to college and travelling due to his father’s untimely death, has to take over his business leading to a lifetime of being stuck in a job that is not of his choice. He struggles financially, has more children than he can afford to feed, lives in a dilapidating house and to make it worse, has to watch everyone else around him succeed, leading to a life so filled with rage and frustration that his behaviour is on the brink of being abusive towards his children and wife, eventually causing him to contemplate suicide. Is this what Frank Capra, the director, thinks is a wonderful life?
With barely an hour left in the film, comes the climax. A drunken George crashes his car into a tree and then walks over to the edge of a bridge and almost commits suicide. But he is saved by his guardian angel(literally!), Clarence (Henry Travers). Later, while talking to Clarence, he says in, a bout of frustration, that he wishes he’d never been born. So, in a slightly Christmas Caroly way, Clarence shows what Bedford Falls would have looked like had he never existed. Bedford Falls isn’t Bedford Falls. It’s Pottersvile, named after the character Mr Potter who seems like the personification of capitalism. Every sight is supposed to be worse than the last one. The town has turned sleazy and into a bedhub of crime. The people, he knew and loved and helped, their lives have taken a turn for the worse. They have either been arrested or intitutionalized. And Mary has turned agoraphobic and never married anyone. Towards the end of the sequence, Clarence tells George how his life touched so many else’s and that he did have a wonderful life and he was going to throw it all away. He begs Clarence for his life back. And when he finally gets it back, herein lies the secret to the movie’s endurance. George runs through town, elated and thankful for the life he has. When he returns home, he sees that the townspeople have donated money to help him recover the money he had lost. George’s life didn’t pan out the way he had planned but that doesn’t make it worthless and it isn’t the reason he should be perpetually unhappy. In a world that tells us ‘you do you’, and that all we need to do is focus to achieve what we want, forgets that we as humans don’t live in a vacuum. Our lives affect numerous others and so many lives touch ours. That in such a world it’s not always possible to get what we want or do what we want. That life requires compromises and sacrifices. That this doesn’t have to mean that we failed, it just means that our life turned a little different but it’s equally worth living.
The movie is particularly resonant at a time when our lives have been upended in such a dramatic way. We’ve had to give up the dream of going abroad to study, have had the idea of what it means to a parent changed or worse, had a loved one sent to the grave before their time. But ‘It’s a wonderful life’ tells us that it doesn’t make our life a misery. Instead, it makes the good moments shine brighter. That as long as we have people who love us and support us, it indeed is a wonderful life.