I have seen this movie so many times that this watch I decided I was going to go in looking for issues that I have, in the past, joyfully overlooked because of how much I love it. And of course, there are issues because the movie is made in the ‘40s (one small scene involving Harry and the hired help immediately comes to mind), but for the most part this is still a beautiful ode to what living should be that it always has been.

Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey is no saint. He lets his frustrations out on the people he cares about far too often (the scene in which he finally gives into the love he feels for Donna Reed’s Mary is particularly troublesome for me). The real saint of the movie is Mary - she patiently puts up with her husband’s sometimes anger problem and is the one who ultimately fixes things in the end after George has let his self loathing go too far. When her future husband calls her “brainless”, she doesn’t take offense - she waits for him to come around. This is also probably emblematic of some of the 1940s treatment of women, and I sincerely wish that the movie could let Mary call George out on his bad behavior every once in awhile.

But ultimately the movie remains a testament not only to what one should value in life but also to the power of community. The Bailey Building and Loan is the sort of community tool that we’d expect to find in a Capra movie - it serves as a pillar of Bedford Falls and the bedrock upon which the town lives and breathes. It allows people to get out of the gutter, all with minimal profits for its majority stakeholders (presumably, the Baileys), but it’s not just the Baileys who keep it running. In a memorable scene regarding a bank run, it is up to George to convince the hundreds of people lining up that they should only take what they really need lest the whole enterprise go under, and he manages to do so by demonstrating that panic will kill the community and believing in each other is the only route forward. “Potter isn’t selling, Potter’s buying!” he reminds his deposit holders, begging them to do the same and buy into the mission the building and loan is built upon. I’ve come to realize as I watch Capra movies that unfortunately it’s entirely possible that such enterprises only exist in the movies - I sincerely doubt that such a building and loan, with minimal profit making, ever truly existed. But it remains an invitation to hope for the best and to invest in your community, and for that I love it.

I truly think that theme is the more important one of It’s a Wonderful Life, rather than the oft repeated “no man is a failure who has friends”. We spend 75% of this movie’s run time seeing George’s life, rather than Clarence’s attempts to make him see the life for what it has done for others, and I think this is by design. We are supposed to see how much George has given to Bedford Falls and how much it has cost him - we are supposed to understand how much community should mean.

“They do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?” says George Bailey of the citizens of Bedford Falls. In this time of division in this country, when terrible things befalls many of our most vulnerable people, I think it’s a sentiment worth repeating. We need to take care of those we live near. We need to invest in those relationships. I love this movie and I love Frank Capra for giving it to all of us. I only wish it was regarded as less of a Christmas movie, but if that’s what it takes to get people to watch it, then I’ll take it.