Actor Johnny Depp is looking past Ebenezer Scrooge’s money — and toward the man who has shut everyone out.
“With Ebenezer Scrooge, I was looking for a different way in than just the idea of this miserable, greedy old guy,” Depp said in Paramount Pictures’ new EBENEZER featurette.
The studio released the short video on Oct. 27, offering a glimpse into Depp’s approach to Charles Dickens’ famous miser ahead of the movie’s Nov. 13 theatrical release. Director Ti West leads the adaptation, with a screenplay by screenwriter Nathaniel Halpern.
Depp’s starting point offers something more interesting than another bad-tempered Christmas grouch. He wants to find a way into Scrooge, rather than stopping at the greed and unpleasantness everyone already recognizes.
“There are deep messages,” Depp said while discussing Dickens’ story.
Related: What Audiences Should Know About EBENEZER: A CHRISTMAS CAROL
EBENEZER follows Scrooge on a supernatural Christmas Eve journey through his past, present and future, with his ultimate fate at stake. That premise turns a familiar holiday question into something far more personal. What happens when a man finally has to face the life he has chosen?
Dickens’ original story gives that question its sting. Before readers meet the possibility of a changed Scrooge, they encounter the lonely schoolboy he once was and the young man who lets his pursuit of wealth crowd out love.
On his journey into the past, Scrooge sees himself alone at school and weeps. Later, the woman he had planned to marry tells him that money has displaced her in his heart, confronting him with the cost of the life he has been building.
Those scenes do not excuse his cruelty. They make his choices harder to shrug off. The man who keeps everyone at a distance once knew loneliness himself, yet he has become someone who refuses compassion to others.
For families returning to the story, that is where the Christmas message reaches beyond decorations and nostalgia. Scrooge needs more than a better mood; he needs repentance that changes how he treats the people in front of him.
Dickens makes that change concrete at the end of the novella. Scrooge raises his clerk Bob Cratchit’s salary, promises help for his struggling family and becomes a second father to Tiny Tim; generosity replaces the selfishness that once governed his days. His change does not stay private. The people who endured his coldness become the very people who benefit from his generosity.
A familiar redemption story, however, does not automatically make every adaptation suitable for young children. Movieguide®’s review of DISNEY’S A CHRISTMAS CAROL praised that separate movie’s Christian and redemptive message while warning that its frightening imagery could overwhelm young or sensitive viewers.
That assessment does not establish EBENEZER’s content or suitability. Families will still need to consider how this new adaptation handles the scares alongside the story’s hope.
Depp’s fellow cast members include actors Rupert Grint, Andrea Riseborough, Sam Claflin, Daisy Ridley, Tramell Tillman and Ian McKellen. With EBENEZER arriving Nov. 13, the question is not simply how Depp will play a man audiences know so well, but how this version will bring his need for change home.
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