“ Ebenezer ” – Review: Johnny’s Witching Hour

What a comeback! Who would have thought that the disgraced Gérard Depardieu was hired by Hollywood to star as the grumpy Ebenezer Scrooge in a remake of “Christmas Carol”? Wait, wait! Sorry – that’s a much stronger Johnny Depp. But you can still call it a big comeback, because here we see his first role in America since the trial against Amber Heard.

The anticipation for the film is also justified for another reason. Dickens sends three ghosts into the race to cure the stubborn Christmas and misanthrope with a radical cure. So it will definitely be a bit scary; But what happens when we’re dealing with a director who comes from the horror genre? That’s exactly the case here: Ti West made a name for himself primarily through his trilogy “X”, “Pearl” and “MaXXXine” and could therefore give this classic literary adaptation some special shocking moments.

Three scary ghosts

West actually never misses an opportunity to show the ghosts in a particularly spooky way: Andrea Riseborough’s Ghost of Christmas Past appears as a pale veiled creature with huge white bulging eyes, the Ghost of Future Christmas is in the black robe of death, behind which a special surprise is hidden, and even the jovial and greedy Ghost of this year’s Christmas Night (Tramell Tillman) finally lifts his robe to reveal a rather gruesome inner life. As if that weren’t enough, the ghosts of the departed also rise from the cemetery opposite and often press their pale faces against the windows like zombies. No wonder that with so much horror, Ebenezer even wets his pants in fear.

Despite all these horror elements enriched with humor, West does not forget the color of the time and proves to be a man with a feel for fine details, as the opening credits prove: There the stark social contrasts in London in 1836 take shape for us in images that are as concise as they are haunting.

Johnny Depp, grumpy and mischievous

Depp, a fan of dressing up, is completely in his element here, but perhaps he also took on the role so that he could vent his private frustration over the bumpy last few years to his heart’s content. In any case, his grumpy snappiness leaves nothing to be desired, but at the same time the mischief always flashes from his eyes and it becomes clear how much joy this trip to old London brings him. Rupert Grint arouses our pity as the unfairly treated employee Bob Cratchit, and Ian McKellen also makes a short but important guest appearance.

Through the eyes of a crow

A large crow becomes the winged leitmotif and flutters through the entire film. You can understand her as a messenger of the soul or interpret her even more since she appears in the opening credits at the same time as Ti West’s name. So she becomes the director’s all-seeing eye and at one point we even experience the flight through a church from her perspective (which is also a nice homage to a well-known scene from Dario Argento’s “Opera”).

So West touches us and Ebenezer’s hearts with a cold hand, but he doesn’t touch the well-known plot of the famous original and leaves it in its sometimes somewhat sentimental sweetness. (Good thing, otherwise Dickens himself might have visited him as an angry ghost on Christmas Eve.)

4 out of 5 silver watches in beggar hands