Deconstructing: It’s a Wonderful Life

It’s a Wonderful Life is one of my favorite holiday movies. It’s got it all. Love! War! Fiscal cliffs! Italian's who own martini bars named Martini's! The core of the story centers around a guy named George Bailey, played pitch perfectly by the amazing Jimmy Stewart. George is a guy who just can’t catch a break, and when he finally hits rock bottom he stumbles upon his guardian angel, Clarence (and boy, what a weirdo angel he turns out to be). After George wishes he’d never been born, Clarence gives him the chance to see what the world would have been like had he never existed. 

This seems to be just some great old-timey black and white holiday fodder, but the movie actually addresses some pretty deep philosophical questions. As I attempted to deconstruct this classic film, I discovered that this bit of "Capra-corn” is actually a whole lot darker than I ever realized, leaving me asking question - just how wonderful a life is it really?

At the start we meet young George Bailey, a hardworking kid who seemingly runs around Bedford Falls saving people. First it’s his younger brother Harry from the skating rink (who knew you could lose your hearing from cold water?), then it’s grief-stricken Mr. Gower at the pharmacy. Mr. Gower is upset about his son dying, so he gets confused mixing up prescriptions and actually puts POISON into someone’s medication bottle (why does this pharmacist have poison again?). George notices Mr. Gower’s gaffe and prevents him from killing some kid, though not before getting a few good smacks to the head (child abuse, and we’re only ten minutes in!).

George grows up dreaming of fleeing the "crummy old town" of Bedford Falls (I dunno, it seems nice enough to me), but literally EVERYTHING gets in his way. First, he starts to fall in love with Mary after they Charleston their way into the pool under the dance floor, then sing that annoying song over and over again, (who is this buffalo gal anyway?)  Mary knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it, which for a female character in the 1940’s I really appreciate. George even asks her want she wants. “What is it you want, Mary? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary.”

SWOON. George is kinda hot!

Just as George and Mary are about to stop talking about lassoing the moon and finally make out, George’s dad dies. BAH! TIMING! His death stops George from spending his summer in Europe, while also compromising the status of the family owned Building and Loan. Meanie old rich guy Mr. Potter, who is in a wheelchair and has a really nice plaid throw blanket over his legs all the time, is a major shareholder. On the day George is ready to leave for school the board decides they should sell the business to Mr. Potter. This gets George super upset because Mr. Potter really hates the poors and wants to take away their loans and stuff. The board realizes they’re all really stupid, and so they agree not to sell on the condition that George, the only smart person within a 100 mile radius, takes over.

FOILED AGAIN! George gives all his college money to his brother Harry with the understanding that when he gets back he’ll take over the family biz, and then George can FINALLY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD go travel the world. Oops, that doesn’t exactly go as planned. Sorry George! Harry comes back four years later, and he’s married, and is all, Hey, this is my wife and her dad just totally offered me this great job, so would you be a pal and forget all about your dreams and let me go make a ton of money while you keep on looking after the Building and Loan? K, thanks.

Mary comes back from college, and gets George to finally realize she’s the one for him. In a scene I always thought was particularly romantic, Mary and George kiss while some guy named Sam “Hee-Haw” Wainwright is blabbering on the other end of the phone from an office in Chicago or somewhere (remember him, he’s important later on in the story). “Oh Mary, Mary, Mary,” he says. “Oh George, George, George,” she says. And then they kiss in the weird way people did in movies from the 1940’s which is just like, moving their heads around a lot with their closed mouths touching.

George and Mary get hitched, and no sooner do they leave the church than there is something afoot at the freaking Building and Loan! What can I say, owning a small independent business is bad news. George, always the one to swoop in for the rescue, leaves his wife in the car and goes to check it out. I don’t know about you but I think I’d be pretty annoyed if my husband left me on the way to our honeymoon. But whatever, Mary is cool.

This scene always really gets me riled up. Could the people of Bedford Falls be any more annoying? There’s a run on the bank, and everyone in town is in there demanding cash on the spot or they’re going to sell their loans to Mr. Potter. Calm down people! George rationally tries to explain to them what’s happening, but everyone is just like, “I need my $82.50!” until Mary shows up and gives these ungrateful idiots all their honeymoon money. Then there’s a lame faux honeymoon staged by policeman Bert, and cab driver Ernie (is this where Sesame Street got it from?), and then they have like four kids (you only need to know about Zuzu), and then the war happens and Harry enlists but George can’t because apparently if you can’t hear well out of one ear you can’t shoot a gun.

Skip ahead a few years, and that’s when we get into the intense stuff, the turning point, the straw that breaks poor George Bailey’s back. Freaking. Uncle. Billy. I mean, amiright?! It’s Christmas Eve, and this MORON forgets he wrapped up $8,000 in a newspaper and then basically just handed it over to George’s nemesis Mr. Potter. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! George freaks out, nearly kills Uncle Billy (I know I would), and then runs off to make a desperate plea to Mr. Potter. This scene is like, really sad. I mean, this poor guy just can't catch a break. George is freaking out about the lost money all while Mr. Potter has it right there wrapped up in that nice plaid blanket of his! Then Mr. Potter, because he’s rich, offers George a cigar and tries to hire him, saying things like, “You wouldn't mind living in the nicest house in town, buying your wife a lot of fine clothes, a couple of business trips to New York a year, maybe once in a while Europe. You wouldn't mind that, would you, George?” And George is thinking, YEAH DUDE that sounds freaking AWESOME, until he realizes that Mr. Potter is just part of the manipulative one percent, and so stands up to him and gives his great speech, “Mr. Potter, in the whole vast configuration of things I’d say you’re nothing but a scurvy little spider!”

You tell him, George! Spiders are awful!

Soon George is on the lam because Mr. Potter calls the cops on his broke ass. Ugh, rich people are so mean it's not even funny.

This is where the movie gets DARK, and George hops on a downward spiral for the ages. He goes home, where I have to say, that the faulty knob at the end of the banister is a small yet amazing device. Maybe it’s because I grew up in an old house where stuff was always on the brink of destruction, but I think it’s such a frustrating thing to have to deal with. Because sometimes it's the smallest thing that can really send you over the edge. THIS! FUCKING! BANNISTER!

George finds his littlest daughter Zuzu sick in bed. Some stupid teacher didn’t tell her to put her coat on or something, and now she’s got a temperature (basically everyone in this town is an idiot in case you haven’t caught on to that already). George and Zuzu have this really touching moment where he tries to tell her that her flower isn’t dying, and shoves the dead petals into his trouser pockets. Then shit gets real.While this scene is intense, I love it, because listen, sometimes parents lose it because being an adult is hard. George blows up at Zuzu’s teacher over the phone, and Tommy or whoever just needs to stop playing the SAME DAMN SONG ON THE DAMN PIANO, and then George freaks out about this drafty damn house, and this stupid damn town, and on, and on, and on. Mary just stands there looking like, holy cow, somebody get this guy a drink.

So he does just that. George flees the house and heads over to the martini bar called Martini’s run by and Italian guy named Giuseppe Martini (I mean, give me a break). He proceeds to get drunk and crash his car (I always hate that asshole who is all worried about his freaking oak tree or whatever, and not the fact that this person who actually crashed into it might be hurt). Then, in one of the darkest moments of this feel-good film, George is like, screw this shit and this town and Mr. Potter, “I’m worth more dead than alive,” and he pulls himself up on the railing of the bridge. Just before he’s about to say goodbye cruel world, there’s a splash and someone else falls in. George jumps in to save the guy, and while they both should have met a cold, watery end together, they don’t. It’s a Christmas miracle.

Enter: Clarence, the guardian angel who only drinks mulled wine and is on a mission to get his wings. As they’re warming up after the jump in the water, George angrily tells Clarence he wishes he’d never been born. This is when Clarence decides to take George on a wild ride through an alternate history for pretty much his own self gain (read: wings).

And it sure does take George a while to catch on. “Ma car! Ma car! What happened to ma car?!” he keeps asking. And Clarence has to keep being like FOR CHRIST’S SAKE GEORGE, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY IT? YOUR CAR ISN’T HERE BECAUSE YOU WERE NEVER BORN!

We soon find that without George Bailey, Bedford Falls would have fallen into a dictatorship, Mary would be been a dried up old spinster librarian (with glasses!), Harry would have died, Mr. Gower would have become homeless and been treated poorly by the Italian bartender, Violet would have still been a tramp, and Uncle Billy would still have been a complete and total moron, only this time he’d have been locked up in an insane asylum where he belongs.

Now we’re finally coming to the end of this festive epic. George is not at all happy with the way things are without him, so he goes back to the bridge and pleads, “I want to live again!” Aw. The snow starts to fall, and George checks his pockets for Zuzu’s petals. There they are! Zuzu’s petals! BOOM. George is back. He takes off, all hopped up on life and good cheer, and starts running through the town. He remembers that it’s Christmas, and is now apparently totally fine with the fact that life has pretty much screwed him up until this point. “Merry Christmas Bedford Falls! Merry Christmas movie house! Merry Christmas you wonderful old Building and Loan!” Building and Loan? Really? Somebody has clearly forgotten about that sham honeymoon he was forced to go on.

Mary, always the one to keep it together, has rallied the town during George’s psychotic break. Before long, everyone in Bedford Falls is in George’s living room proffering cash. We’re even meant to feel okay about that single woman who says she’s been saving her money in case she ever found a husband. Ugh, sad! Keep your money! You’ll find a man! Then that character from two and a half hours ago that we’re supposed to remember, Sam Wainwright, hee-haws George and his family not just $8,000, but A $25,0000 LINE OF CREDIT! That was like a MILLION dollars back then! Mary should have married him when she had the chance! Harry, who has blown in looking handsome as ever, calls his big brother “The richest man in town” (but you get it right? It’s not about the money, it’s about family and friends or whatever?), and then everyone starts singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

We don’t know where she gets it from, but out of nowhere Zuzu hands George a wrapped present. It’s the copy of Tom Sawyer that Clarence always carried around (I always thought that was a bit random for an angel, no? Shouldn’t he be holding the Bible or something?). Inside the book Clarence has written “No man is a failure who has friends.” To me this is sort of like, well, you basically are a failure and everyone knows it, but good thing you have some people around you who don’t really seem to mind.

On cue, someone, probably some lowly production assistant, bumps into the Christmas tree behind George, Mary and Zuzu, and a bell rings. This prompts Zuzu to say the classic line, “Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings,” and George smiles, apparently forgetting this is the exact same damn teacher who got his kid sick. Then everyone starts singing that song that doesn’t make sense about old acquaintances being forgot, and it looks like George is having a hard time remembering all the words just like the rest of us.

In the end George seems happy enough, but re-watching this old classic I can’t help but wonder how long it will last. Let’s not forget that Mr. Potter is still lurking out there somewhere plotting to take down George and turn Bedford Falls into Pottersville. And I’d say it’s pretty likely given his track record that Uncle Billy will do something epically stupid again in the near future to make George want to kill himself.

So when all is said and done, is it really a wonderful life? I used to think so but now I’m not so sure. And I bet if you asked George Bailey today, what with the looming financial crisis, and the high unemployment rate, and four kids to get through this country’s overpriced higher education system, something tells me he’d probably agree.