The Scary Subtext of "It's a Wonderful Life"

As another holiday season approaches and the world girds itself for an onslaught of TV broadcasts of "It's a Wonderful Life," I'm reminded of a film reviewer at a newspaper where I worked who cynically but accurately referred to it as a horror film.

What?

This late-career effort by Frank Capra, whose gentle, sentimental comedies released during Hollywood's Golden Age were collectively identified during his heyday by the rubric "Capracorn," concerns a small-town businessman (played by James Stewart) who, in the midst of a crisis that nearly drives him to suicide, is given the opportunity to see how his community would have turned out had he never been born.

Sounds like a Yuletide yukfest, don't it? Well, no, not exactly. Actually, it was a flop when it first came out: too dark for a comedy, too light for a drama, and a cold bucket of water on America's efforts to put the grim years of World War II behind it. But, like some movies that originally failed, it has long since been hailed as a classic.

I agree. I adore this film. But it's not a Christmas film, and I agree with my former coworker in his astute opinion that in a way, it's a frightening one.

The movie opens with a framing device of sorts: An angel is being briefed about the mission he will soon be sent to Earth to accomplish. We are then treated to a cavalcade of Americana mythmaking, as scrappy, charismatic young George Bailey grows up in an archetypal New England town to become a pillar of the community.

After the extended prologue gives way to the main action, we soon find ourselves accompanying George on his alternate-reality odyssey on Christmas Eve, and the climax takes place later that evening. The ending is pure Capracorn, with community solidarity, familial bliss, and Christmas cheer joining forces to give viewers a warm, glowing feeling.

But it's not about Christmas, and it's not about a model citizen. It's really about a man who abandons his adventurous ambitions, giving in to the pressures and expectations of a steady but stultifying and not at all wonderful life at every turn-denying personal desires for the communal good. And viewed through that cynical lens, it's a scary story indeed.

But even with that depressing discovery, "It's a Wonderful Life" is a delightful film. Capra's canon is replete with comedies with dark undertones, and this darkest of them all, though its many bright spots temper the sober subtext, bears repeated viewings to plumb the depths of a not-too-hidden message about the perils of self-abnegation.