Some people criticise It’s a Wondeful Life for being sentimental, and it is, but it’s also a very dark film. It’s basically the story of an ordinary, good man who sees himself as a failure and decides to commit suicide on Christmas Eve rather than face imprisonment for being wrongly accused of embezzling $8,000. Luckily he is sent a Guardian Angel that shows him what his life would be like if he’d never existed. Needless to say Bedford Falls; the town he lives is in a much sorrier state without him.

As a child he ends up going deaf in one ear after saving his little brother from drowning in an icy lake, and stops his boss from accidentally prescribing poison to another child. He forgoes his chance to travel the world to run his fathers Building and Loan company after he dies. He even forgoes his chance to go to college in favour of his little brother, because he believes the Building and Loan to be vital to the poor people who live in his town. He continues to sacrifice his own dreams and ambitions for the well being of others, which is absolutely heartbreaking. I watch it almost willing him to be more of a dick, because his determination to always do the right thing is obviously eating away at him inside. But I absolutely love him for it.

James Stewart’s performance is incredible and he displays each of George’s shattered dreams, one by one all over his face. Even his attempted suicide is full of stoicism. He’s only doing it so his family can claim his life insurance and pay off the Building and Loan’s debt, and also so he protect his uncle who he assumes to responsible for losing the money, but isn’t.

It’s a Wonderful Life is probably the only film I make an effort to see EVERY Christmas. The movie has the power to reduce me to tears, actual proper tears, and it always has. There’s something about the end of the movie that really gets to me, but because I now know what’s coming I can barely stop myself from crying at various different intervals during the film, at earlier and earlier points in the movie. So much so that when I watched it last week time I found myself going at exactly six minutes and 55 seconds into the film, and a lot of that is taken up the opening titles. In case you’re wondering it was the bit where we first see George’s wife Mary as a little girl and she whispers in George’s deaf ear when he can’t see her
“Is this the ear you can’t hear out of? George Bailey, I’ll love you until the day I die.”
I know. It’s ridiculous.

At the end of movie all of the people of Bedford Falls, having heard he’s in trouble, go to George’s house and each give him all of the money that they’ve been saving for there own Christmas’ in order to help him. He then finds a message from his Guardian Angel that reads “No Man Is a Failure Who Has Friends”.

In conclusion to me the film celebrates ordinariness and is about how all of our lives touch so many others, without any of us realising it, and so long as you’ve lived you life in an honourable way then you’ve not failed at all. If anyone loves you, be it friends, or family, or lovers then you’ve already cracked life’s great Sudoku puzzle anyway. It doesn’t matter, whether you fulfil all of your ambitions. It’s much better to always try and do the right thing, even if you might be hurting yourself in the process, and it’s not what you do with your life it’s how you live it. I think it pays to always try and live you life as much like George Bailey as you possibly can, because you see it really is a wonderful life after all.