GOD BLESS US EVERYONE

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Johnny Depp nearly disappears into the role of Charles Dickens’ iconic miser in “Ebenezer.”

Ever since his 2017 legal battle with his business managers and his 2022 defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, Johnny Depp has been a figurative Ghost of Hollywood Past.

Thus, Ebenezer, a new version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and his first big stateside project in years, is nothing short of an attempt at a career resurrection. And though it breaks no new ground and fails to surpass its finest predecessors, it’s a do-over that earns him a measure of redemption, much like his iconic character.

Directed by Ti West (coming off his slasher trilogy of X, Pearl, and MaXXXine), Ebenezer (Nov. 13, in theaters) takes an overtly Hammer Horror-ish approach to its source material, even as it has its leading man sporadically engage in comical over-reactions and pratfalls that don’t quite suit the predominantly grim atmosphere.

As far as distinctive tactics go, it’s reasonably effective, with West imagining Dickens’ legendary specters in ghoulish fashion and drenching his story in mist, muck, cobwebs, and snow. Never less than handsome, and sturdily shouldered by Depp in a performance that authentically channels Ebenezer Scrooge’s misanthropic miserliness, it’s a film that, if not a standard-bearer, serves as an admirable addition to the canon of adaptations.

With long, unkempt gray locks poking out from beneath his top hat and nightcap, his eyes sallow and his wrinkled cheeks decorated with bushy mutton chops, Depp’s Scrooge is a familiar crotchety creature, and perhaps the most unexpected thing about Ebenezer is that neither the actor nor the film itself takes any significant liberties with the beloved tale. West’s rendition is faithful and straightforward, save for an emphasis on the macabre, as evidenced by an early jump scare that underscores the proceedings’ PG-13 rating.

Scrooge sneers at the beggar outside his counting-house office window, and he appreciates his partner, Jacob Marley (Ian McKellen), chastising their employee, Bob Cratchit (Rupert Grint). He’s the same jerk he’s always been, with a grin that implies he takes dour pleasure in being heartless.

Marley is not long for this world, and seven years after his passing, Scrooge has calcified into a living gargoyle of anti-Christmas cheapness and cruelty. His nephew Fred’s (Sam Claflin) invitation to spend the holiday together is roundly rebuffed, and he can barely bring himself to let Cratchit have December 25 off to be with his family. Upon returning home, however, Scrooge’s evening devolves into startling supernatural insanity, beginning with a vision of his front door knocker assuming Marley’s visage and a subsequent appearance by his deceased partner’s chain-burdened spirit, who informs him that he’ll soon be visited by three ghosts—with his Earthly fate hanging in the balance.

Ebenezer is shrouded in gloom, sometimes to a fault; West’s gothic imagery is suitably ominous, but his CGI effects are hit or miss (Marley, for instance, looks excessively fuzzy). Better are his swooping pans in and around Scrooge and Marley’s business establishment, as well as his inventive transitions between the real and unreal realms that his protagonist traverses over the course of his fateful night.

All in all, it’s a handsome aesthetic package, including Tyler Bates’ portentous score and a soundscape of clanging, creaking, and crackling—all of which go hand in hand with the action’s roaring lamps and fireplaces, screeching carriages, clinking cups, and wailing apparitions.

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The first, per tradition, is the Ghost of Christmas Past (Oscar-nominated To Leslie star Andrea Riseborough), here envisioned as a bald, pale, milky-eyed woman cloaked in a wispy veil. She returns Scrooge to the boarding school where classmates bullied him, and to the house where his drunken father tormented him and his doting sister comforted him. Riseborough’s phantom would be right at home in one of West’s prior horror shows, and her ethereal creepiness is entrancing enough to make the film’s occasional detours into broad comedy feel ill-fitting. It’s not that Depp isn’t adept at being funny; rather, it’s that his jokey moments fail to mesh with the surrounding spookiness.

This mild tonal dissonance comes across as a byproduct of West’s inherent artistic instincts and the clashing requirement that Ebenezer remain broadly accessible, and it’s never fully rectified. Still, Severance star Tramell Tillman’s gluttonous Ghost of Christmas Present has a pleasantly stern, unsympathetic disposition and a monstrous surprise up his sleeve (or, to be precise, under his coat), and he makes up for the fact that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (Robert Strange) is an unoriginal Death stand-in who resembles his numerous wraith-like ancestors.

As for Fred and Cratchit—and the latter’s crippled youngest son, Tiny Tim (Freddie Lee-Grey)—Nathaniel Halpern’s script doesn’t deviate from its hallowed template. Yet Grint and Claflin imbue their characters with requisite heart, aiding the film’s customary trajectory.

West does such a solid job encasing Ebenezer in malevolent shadow and fog that when it comes time for Scrooge’s change of heart, the auteur finds it somewhat difficult to make the necessary turn toward the optimistic. The celebratory excitement of the title character’s about-face is muted in this do-over, even though Depp handles his transformation believably, and this shortcoming is exacerbated by the length of his Christmas-morning amends.

Where it should eventually become light and uplifting, it’s subdued, and the director’s inability to tap into Scrooge’s newfound joy and compassion leaves the film ending on a deflatingly ho-hum note.

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Nonetheless, Ebenezer has enough commendable qualities to justify its existence, and Depp sturdily balances Scrooge’s nastiness, silliness, and, finally, kindness. Following Alastair Sim, George C. Scott, Michael Caine, and Albert Finney’s portrayals (among others), his turn is safer than one might expect from the headliner.

The upside to that conservatism, however, is that his Scrooge avoids caricature and convincingly evolves from greedy and foul to altruistic and endearing, seizing the day by recognizing that giving is the key to true happiness.

Not fresh enough to become a classic, but with enough scariness to unnerve its younger viewers, West’s latest is a competent, accurate retelling fit for the Yuletide season—and, perhaps just as crucially, a Depp vehicle that suggests the beleaguered star isn’t ready to relinquish his A-list status just yet.

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Nick SchagerEntertainment Critic

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