ScreeningNotes’s review published on Letterboxd:
Tell me what to watch for a week: Day 3
Listen up, kids: you ought to live a lower class life of hardship and not try to change the circumstances of your oppression because one day a magical fairy will fall out of the sky and solve your problems. Don't stick to your principles, they'll just cause too much trouble. Instead, settle down with a wife and kids and accept that there's nothing you can do about your misfortunes because big nasty bankers rule the world, and one day your perseverance will cause everyone in town to give you their money.
So there I was sitting down watching It's a Wonderful Life. "Man, I forgot how silly some melodramas are," I thought cynically. "How do people believe in such obvious stereotypes?" Then two hours later, this was me: "MERRY CHRISTMAS MOVIE HOUSE! MERRY CHRISTMAS EMPORIUM!" There's just something about this movie that's, well, wonderful. Infectious. I have the opposite reaction to it that I do most movies nowadays: my brain tells me its silly entertainment, but my heart tells me it's pure humanity. And who's to say there's not a good lesson here on the benefits of a communist ethic under capitalism? In any case, I enjoyed it intensely in spite of myself.
The central talent is exceptional. Frank Capra, the king of the American dream and the feel-good family film, is at the top of his game coming off the end of a string of propaganda films for the US War Department and hot on the heels of Arsenic and Old Lace. Jimmy Stewart, the king of the 40's and 50's, is at the top of his game having just worked with Capra on Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the year after doing The Philadelphia Story with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.
For a feel-good film, it's incredible how much not-feeling-good it gets away with. I mean, George is about to lose his job, gets drunk, crashes his car, and attempts to commit suicide. But I think there's something to be said about how you have to go through hardship in order to truly appreciate happiness. The planets talking to each other may be cheesy, and there are approximately 43-too-many wipes, but beyond that, It's a Wonderful Life is an incredibly well constructed film. That's not just nostalgia you're feeling, this movie really works.
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