My Review of Ebenezer (2026)

 

Written by Nathaniel Halpern

Directed by Ti West

Ebenezer: "It's good to be back."

Ah, is it that time of year again? I guess we were due another version of A Christmas Carol and it's barely been a breath since the last version. This time around, you've got Ti West and Johnny Depp teaming up to bring this latest version to life. Already, it's stored some ire but is it actually a bad take?

Truthfully, no but like most recent versions of any classic literature, there's a change or two that may annoy/confuse some people. Ebenezer Scrooge (Johnny Depp) of course spent most of the movie as a miserly man. The death of his partner Jacob Marley (Isn McKellen) not doing much to improve his feelings towards those less fortunate than himself.

Now, let's get into that. There's a backstory change for the character of Fezziwig (Ian Midlane), which somewhat informed Scrooge's stance on the poor. Keeping with every other version, Scrooge was also pretty disdainful towards both his nephew, Fred (Sam Claflin) and employee Bob Cratchit (Rupert Grint). Then there were his three Ghosts.

First of all, there's Christmas Past (Andrea Riseborough). She's suitably ghoulish but showed Ebenezer his younger self (Arthur Conti) as well as his relationship with Belle (Ellie Bamber). Belle was the one that got away and the death of his sister, Fan pretty much hardened his heart.

The most entertaining was Christmas Present (Tramell Tillman). I thought he played off with Ebenezer the best as the latter saw Bob Cratchit's poor home life and of course, Tiny Tim (Freddie Lee-Grey). There's also a look into Fred's home life, Belle helping out at a prison and then the likes of Ignorance and Want giving Ebenezer a good chase and upping the horror.

Christmas Yet-To-Come (Robert Strange) had Scrooge's will edited by Topper (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), a dead Tiny Tim and of course a dead Scrooge before Ebenezer realised he wanted to help the less fortunate and be a good man overall. Yeah, it's not that radically different from other takes.

- Johnny Depp also provided the voice for Christmas Yet-To-Come along with Robert Strange. 

- Both Daisy Ridley and Charlie Murphy appeared as Clara (Fred's wife) and Emily (Bob's wife) respectively.

- Standout music: The Piano Guys Carol of the Bells/God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

- Chronology: Christmas Eve 1836. Its divided into five staves like the book itself.

Ebenezer (2026) in my opinion, turned out to be a good adaptation of a certain Dickens classic. I'll give Johnny Depp his due, he did well with the titular character and Ti West evoked some good moments of horror as well. It's a mostly faithful retelling with the few changes working well enough.

Rating: 7 out of 10