Ebenezer Review: Run-of-the-Mill Christmas Carol

Ebenezer shows moments of potential through its gothic style and solid supporting cast. It’s a shame it’s undermined by the shadow of its lead.

While Ebenezer offers a somewhat fresh perspective by employing a filmmaker with horror roots, it falls short due to a script that doesn’t trust its audience and a casting choice that, in a story about redemption, makes the main message feel disingenuous.

On one unforgettable Christmas Eve, seven years after the passing of his faithful business partner Jacob Marley (Ian McKellen, of The Christophers), Ebenezer Scrooge (Johnny Depp, of Jeanne Du Barry) is visited by the three Ghosts of Christmas. What ensues is a journey across space and time that collides with his past, present, and future. A question is posed to Ebenezer: is it too late to change his ways, or can he make amends with those in his life and right the wrongs of his own creation?

Following accusations of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, in 2022 Johnny Depp and Amber Heard faced each other in a televised defamation trial that attracted enormous public attention, with Depp receiving substantial support on social media while Heard faced widespread online harassment. Prior to Ebenezer, Depp hadn’t been in a major production since 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. The cynic in me can’t get past the coincidental connection here, as Depp plays a man who’s haunted by his mistakes, whom the public might’ve misjudged all along, and who deserves your sympathy by the end – a role that inevitably invites comparisons with the actor’s own public image.

If televising his 2022 trial was the first step in rehabilitating Depp’s public image, then Ebenezer comes across as Hollywood testing whether audiences will actually welcome him back on the silver screen. But even putting Depp aside, Ebenezer itself never really justifies its own existence. Apart from striking visuals here and there, the film is a beat-for-beat telling of “A Christmas Carol,” and as is, it is aggressively fine.

Now, that’s not to say I hated every minute of this. The movie is competently made, all things considered. Ti West’s horror sensibilities drive the idea home that this truly is a ghost story. Eve Stewart’s production design is familiar, yet it builds the atmosphere this story needs. Catherine George’s costumes are considerably more impressive at selling the gothic tone, especially for the three Ghosts of Christmas. All of this is glued together by Tyler Bates’ score when the film goes big and eccentric.

The real structural problem comes in Nathaniel Halpern’s writing, which assumes its audience can’t follow one of the most famous and simple stories ever told. There are numerous examples, but the clearest is the section where the Ghost of Christmas Past (Andrea Riseborough, of To Leslie) shows Ebenezer key moments from his youth. There, we see a child abandoned by his father, bullied by peers, whose only confidants were his protective sister and a bright young woman he fell in love with and later rejected, Belle (Ellie Bamber, of Willow). Through the visual storytelling, accompanied by Bates’ score, you can immediately see that the women in Ebenezer’s life were his light, and when they disappeared—either tragically or because he pushed Belle away—all that was left behind was resentment. The young cast also does a decent enough job communicating this in the flashbacks.

It’s a shame, then, that you’re constantly having to listen to the Ghost of Christmas Past spoon-feed the film’s themes to both Depp and the audience. Though the overexplaining luckily gets less insulting with the other Ghosts as the movie goes on, it does persist. You could argue it is par for the course, given the simplicity of Charles Dickens’ novel. But when The Muppet Christmas Carol shows more maturity and restraint through an excellent Michael Caine, and more personality because puppets are involved, Ebenezer’s flaws become more evident.

Depp himself is tolerable here. His best work comes when he takes the material seriously, but those moments are few and far between. When he switches to his more outlandish style of performance, it’s easy to be reminded why some audiences were starting to get tired of that approach even before the allegations. Though Depp has played a wide variety of characters throughout his career, his more eccentric roles are among his most recognizable. At times, particularly since Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, it can feel as though he’s playing caricatures of Captain Jack Sparrow rather than entirely distinct characters. Ebenezer isn’t going to change that, controversial history or not.

For what it’s worth, when Depp isn’t delivering, the cast around him does. Tramell Tillman (Severance) brings gravitas to his Ghost of Christmas Present. Rupert Grint (Knock at the Cabin) is endearing as Bob Cratchit. Sam Claflin is effortlessly charming as Ebenezer’s nephew, Fred. Daisy Ridley, who plays Fred’s wife Clara, earned the biggest laugh at my press screening: it’s great to see her play a character with a bit of sass. We need Ridley, and her castmates, for that matter, back in (hopefully better written) huge movies again.

In the end, Ebenezer is just another run-of-the-mill adaptation. It’s watchable. It has its moments, mainly when it slows down, takes itself seriously, and lets the visuals do the heavy lifting. I can easily see moviegoers embracing it this holiday season. Would I personally recommend it? It’s a fine way to kill two hours, but with so many more exciting films arriving at the end of the year,  Ebenezer wouldn’t be my first recommendation.

Ebenezer is now available to watch in US theaters, in UK & Irish cinemas, and globally in theatres.