AndrewBloom
7/10 7 years ago
6.7/10. There’s an old adage from Roger Ebert, the patron saint of film critics, that goes “'It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.” There’s wisdom in that, with the idea that even movies that express laudable ideas can do so in a hamfisted or haphazard way, and even ones that does the same for less admirable notions can do so a virtuoso or interesting fashion. *A Miracle on 34th Street* is decidedly the latter, a film that goes to bat for an argument I disagree with, but which does so in a way that makes me nevertheless compelled by the story it tells.
Because *Miracle on 34th Street* is, sometimes subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly, a film that makes the argument that the American way of life and the people who pursue it have gone astray and are misguided, in their goals and in their culture, through the decreased role religion has played in the public and private lives of its citizens. At times, the film engages with this idea in subtle ways: Kris Kringle expecting to be sworn in using a bible, Mr. Bedford wanting to say a prayer, the romantic finale (itself the product of Kringle’s scheme) taking place in an ornate cathedral. At others, it’s much more direct.
That’s particularly true in the film’s climax, where the judge deciding whether the purported Santa Clause should be committed or not makes a direct comparison between the idea of Santa Clause and the idea of God. It’s then that the film puts its cards on the table – for the purposes of *Miracle*, Santa *is* God, not in the sense that he is some divine creator, but that this jovial, benevolent figure who becomes the film’s St. Nikolas, but in the way he is treated skeptically, the way that wounded adults teach their children not to believe him, the way cynical and malevolent forces want to drive him out so that they can do their evil deeds without his interfering do-goodery, that suggest our country and its people are on the wrong track, are empty and incomplete, to the extent religion is treated in the same fashion.
It’s a film that’s peculiarly (lowercase-c) conservative in its views for something that came out of the devil’s den of Hollywood. It subtly posits that a child’s life is out of step if they’re not part of a nuclear family with real house away from the harsh environs of the godless big cities. It suggests that the people who have turned away from faith are either downright evil or are secretly unhappy and lying to themselves about it being for the best. It offers not even the hint of a downside or drawback or measure of complexity to the blind trust it argues for.
As someone who grew up outside the mainstream religion in the United States, that’s a tough pill to swallow. The arguments for and against Santa’s existence in the film are facile and full of easily toppled (if narratively useful) strawmen. There’s a WASP-y orthodoxy, a sense of a desired return to the “good old days” at play that glosses over the problems with that idea. The heart of the film, its point and posited suggestion for what’s best for people and this country as a whole feels antiquated and even myopic, in a way that makes the subtext of so many scenes difficult to contend with.
And yet, taken solely as text, *Miracle* succeeds in telling an unexpectedly convincing story of a wonderfully endearing old man who brings joy to everything he touches and inspires a city, and a nascent family, to something better.
The film’s greatest boon is its casting of Richard Attenborough as its Kris Kringle. Attenborough just exudes a sense of mirth and quiet dignity, bringing gravitas and joy to a role that needed both in great measure. For a film like this to work, on any terms, it needed to make its Santa one that the audience, not just its characters, could believe in at a visceral level, and Attenborough delivers that nigh-perfectly.
But his success also speaks to how the character is written and how the truth of his identity is presented. The easy thing to do, when attempting to show that someone really could be this jovial elf of myth, would be to show him doing something magical, even ambiguously magical (a trick which the film saves for its ending). Instead, the film sells its Santa by demonstrating the pride he takes in who he is, the omnibenevolent bent with which he approaches everything, the utter commitment and care he has for his cause.
That comes through in the stellar, loving sequence where Kringle puts on his Santa suit – with great care and precision – and gazes around at the department store display before him. The sheer euphoria, the pleasure he takes in his mission to spread joy to the world, is palpable and infectious. And by the same token, the stark pale light he inhabits when committed to a mental institution, sitting lonely at the end of his bed staring out the window, is a powerful image of how devastating it is for him to have that ideal taken away and sullied. In one visual, it communicates his abject shame at thinking he’s marred the symbolism of Santa Claus for children all over the world.
But it’s the interactions with children that truly sell Attenborough’s Santa. That comes through in his conversations with Susan Walker (Mara Wilson), an impossibly precocious child who’s been taught by her mother not to believe in such myths. Wilson is superb, particularly given her age, communicating the emotions a child who is unusually resigned to the ways of the world while still trying to find the excitement in them, who gradually looks at the evidence of this man’s very existence and starts to believe something more is possible. A skeptical child becomes the fulcrum through which this Kris Kringle is established as more than just the average department store Santa, and the pair’s conversations -- the cautious optimism on one side and the tender acceptance on the other -- makes it work.
And yet the most magical moment for *Miracle*’s Santa comes in a scene that involve nothing supernatural at all. In what doubles as the film’s most heartwarming moment, a mother brings her deaf child to sit on Santa’s lap and tells him that he doesn’t need to speak to her; she just wanted to see him. It’s then that Kringle reveals he knows sign language, a demonstration which clearly delights the little girl on his knee, and starts to convince little Susan that his Santa is more than meets the eye. There is nothing overtly magical about it, but there’s a sense of preternatural goodness, an altruism and devotion to making
these kids happy that marks him as not of this world.
Unfortunately, even setting aside the thematic issues, the film squanders much of this good will focusing on a dull romance between Susan’s mother (Elizabeth Perkins) and their neighbor Mr. Bedford (Dylan McDermott). Their romance takes up a great deal of oxygen in the film, but we’re never really told through exposition, let alone shown in any convincing way, why they like each other. Instead, Mr. Bedford is simply smitten by fiat, and Ms. Walker is less a character than a means to tell a story of Hallmark-level triteness about a woman who believed in love once, was badly burned by it, and now refuses to trust in anyone or anything after until her mind is predictably changed by the new sprite-in-residence. The whole romantic element feels needlessly tacked on to a film at its best when it eschews such perfunctory movie fill-ins.
The same goes for the cadre of overtly evil characters who set out to ruin Santa Claus for pure financial reasons (when they’re not doing it just for the sake of evil itself). There is, at times, an unshowy complexity to *Miracle*, that delves into why we believe what we do and which makes a surprisingly convincing case for its Kris Kringle.
But when it focuses on these destructive forces – the malevolent rival department store CEO, his duo of goons, the coarse Santa impostor, and the mercenary lawyer who tries to lean on the judge with promises of reelection campaign donations – that message is dumbed down to a cartoonish extent. There’s already reasons for the viewer to have qualms about the arguments the film is quietly (and occasionally not so quietly) making, but the mustache-twirling tones in which any and all opposition are presented also cheapens the message the movie seems to want to send.
Perhaps, however, there is a save. Despite the clear implications behind the manner in which this film tells it story, *Miracle* can be expressed more broadly as an endorsement of the idea of faith, in all its forms. That certainly includes a belief in God, one endorsed by Mr. Bedford’s saving throw at the trial, but also things like the belief in the possibility of love, in other people, in things we do not necessarily understand but nevertheless experience. Stripped of the subtext behind its message, the film can be said to simply stand for a much more neutral principle of the benefits of taking chances on things we want to believe in, even if we risk hurt and hardship in the process.
And if we twist the film’s themes a bit, if we break them down to a few basic ideas they can become something that resonates apart from a somewhat stunted and oversimplified view it espouses. Kris Kringle is right when he says that he is a symbol, that apart from his existence or nonexistence, there is an idea about mankind’s ability to overcome our lesser angels and be our best selves, for our own good, the good of the people we love, and perhaps even the good of the world, that has merit, especially in a holiday season that touches people in this country regardless of the conception of their beliefs.
Despite my reluctance at the idea that religion should be a greater part of public life, I firmly believe that it can be a force for good, that there are innumerable people prompted by their faith to be better and to do wonderful things for others. And more than that, I believe that there are a number of individuals, each of them mere mortals, who have created incredible changes for the benefit of us all, who have changed the world and dedicated their lives to causes that are tremendously admirable and grand. And these people, whatever their religious persuasion, believed, in the face of the horrible tragedies and crimes across human history, that we are a people worth saving, that human beings, whatever their natures, can come together to achieve amazing things and to be as great as we hope to be.
That is, however much or little religion is involved, a vital form of faith. And there are people – whether they be mythical like Kris Kringle or flesh and blood like the film’s producer and co-writer John Hughes -- who give us symbols and touchstones to help remind us of that. They help to rouse that belief, the trust and the hope that we can care for one another, on holidays and everydays. And that, in its own way, is a miracle.
