It’s Christmas Eve, which for many households means an annual rewatch of Frank Capra’s 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life. The movie, which stars Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, did not initially achieve the holiday immortality it now holds. But a lapsed copyright enabled cheap TV reruns. And once people got reintroduced, they rediscovered its enduring greatness.
Watching It’s a Wonderful Life now, it’s not hard to see why. The movie, based on the story “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern, is timeless and heartwarming, but also relatable and even visceral: Put-upon family man George Bailey (Stewart) grows gradually frustrated at his thwarted dreams, leading to a dissatisfaction with his life in his small hometown of Bedford Falls with his wife Mary (Reed). His bitterness culminates in a personal crisis that leads to his wishing he’d never been born, only for his guardian angel Clarence (Henry Travers) to grant his wish as a way of revealing how much he means to those around him. More than three-quarters of a century after its release, the movie continues to reward rewatches, find new fans, and defy its few critics.
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