It's a Wonderful Life

Since I watched this movie in its seasonal norm a few weeks ago, I've been thinking a lot about it. I've always liked it, since I was little and it played on regular TV every Christmas time. I especially liked the end, where George got to see what a wonderful life he led. How different the world would have been without him. And now as an adult, I watch it, and I still like the end. I got the tingly happy feeling watching all his neighbors bring their few dollars and tell him how grateful they are for him.

But I'm a little more perplexed as an adult, particularly by one of the last lines of the narrator that reminds us of the everyman spin onto it. Let me see if I can explain. There are a number of reasons that people enjoy pieces of fiction (books, movies, etc.) For some pieces, it's the escapist quality, the adventure, and for others its the pulls at the heart strings.  In most cases, though, regardless the genre, there is an appeal to the everyman. In an adventure, it's a temporary opportunity to imagine yourself heroically, or doing something out of the mundane. The heart string pullers are a little closer to reality, having the "this really could happen to you" feel about them. But still, they're a pull from the mundane. Whatever the case, the audience pulls themselves into the story. Facebook quizmakers are very well aware of this as they don't seem to have an end to the number of "Which character are you?" quizzes and people continue to love taking them.

So what is the everyman take home from It's a Wonderful Life? It's not too much of a great adventure. In fact, one of the great conflicts is that George never gets to go on the travelling adventures he's always wanted to. So, it seems to fit more tidily into the "This could happen to you." And indeed, as the narrator tries to convince us in his summary, who, in their everyday everyman life doesn't want to feel like their pittance of an existence has made a great mark on the world?

This is what perplexes me, though. See, it's not quite as tidy as that. Although a young person watching it can be inspired to live a selfless life, as George did, giving to others for the sake of his love for them, not everyone will be able to look back on their life with the same results. How many people can say they've saved the life of a war hero who went on to save hundreds of other lives? How many people are able to save a city from being clutched in the grasp of a greedy monopolizer? Seeing these big things as the marks of a "wonderful life" can leave the everyman feeling his life is not quite so big a stick as that.

Nonetheless, I don't think we can stop here and write off the movie as not up to snuff. There's something that's just under the surface that needs to come up. And that is what makes it a great story. That is, what is it that makes George feel as if his life is wonderful? Is it realizing the good he's done? No, I don't think so. He does have some kind of recognition here. But that's not what brings about his change of heart. It comes to a culmination when he sees Mary unhappy and his heart yearns to have her and make her happy again, when he realizes how happy she's made him. And then it continues there to his other friends--it's not how much good he's done for them that he rejoices in, but how happy they made him: the reasons that he did the good deeds he spent his life doing, because he loved them.

This too is why this is such a great Christmas movie. Many movies have a Christmas scene in them, and sometimes they get lumped into the Christmas movie category and sometimes they don't. It's a Wonderful Life, as far as setting goes, could fall in with those. It has a Christmas scene, which happens to be at the end. But it's the focus of the whole movie. No, what makes this a Christmas movie is the theme--the demonstration of the Savior's love through a single person. There was an angel, though not a Christmas angel, but he served to represent how the Savior makes our lives wonderful, by providing us with people we can love, if we choose to, by providing us with opportunities to help each other. Not all of us will have life-saving opportunities, not in the grandiose sense, but we can all in our small ways make our lives wonderful by choosing to be grateful for the lives of the loved ones around us.