A Christmas Carol (2009)

[School of Movies 2025]

Jim Carrey plays Ebeneezer Scrooge in this unsettling adaptation (sometimes intentionally so, sometimes not). Here, we get to talk about what was possible in this performance capture version that has been done nowhere else, making it strange and special and awkward and precious.

Continuing our season of going back to the start, we resurrected the Robert Zemekis incarnation of the perennial yuletide Dickens classic (which we covered back in December 2011 in conjunction with Muppet Christmas Carol... the froggy one we subsequently revisited in 2022).

This is also part of an ongoing series analysing the five very uneven performance capture animation films of Image Movers Digital, starting with The Polar Express in 2004, graduating to Monster House in 2006 and closing out with the death-rattle of Mars Needs Moms in 2011. All three of those will be featured on our After School Club over the next few weeks. The remaining oddball adaptation of Beowulf from 2007 is our personal favourite of the quintet and we will finally be talking about it next year. This sub-series is also a part of the overall Zemekis Season we are conducting. Coming next year we will also showcase Forest Gump, Here, The Witches and the riotous Death Becomes Her. Also for Carrey fans, we have his second-finest dramatic performance, The Truman Show, coming very soon (the first-finest being this).