Ebenezer (3 stars out of 4)
You’ve already got plenty of options when it comes to adapting Charles Dickens’s novel A Christmas Carol for live action. A lot of people seem to like the George C. Scott version, but my favorite will always be the Albert Finney musical from 1970. (Other gems include Bill Murray’s “Scrooged” and the “Black Adder Christmas Carol,” which puts the whole narrative in reverse.)
With all those options, considering Ti West’s “Ebenezer” really comes down to one question: is it worth seeing Johnny Depp play Ebenezer Scrooge? When it comes to playing eccentric characters, Depp often walks a fine line between brilliant and just weird. But while I wouldn’t call his turn brilliant, he definitely errs on the side of “good” this time, and as long as your audience can handle some frequent frights, “Ebenezer” should be an early contender for your holiday movie season.
The film opens with a touch more backstory than usual. Rather than start things off with Scrooge running his business solo, we get a brief scene that takes place a few years earlier, when his partner Marley (Ian McKellen) is still alive. This transitions quickly to the set-up we’re accustomed to, and most of “Ebenezer” follows the classic story arc: Scrooge is miserable and berates everyone from nephews to charity collectors, Marley’s ghost shows up to call him to repentance, then Scrooge takes an all-night tour of his past, present, and future as three ghosts give him the opportunity to change his ways.
With such a well-known story, the experience is more about enjoying the interpretation than sitting on the edge of your seat in suspense, and though “Ebenezer” does seem to highlight some different parts of the story, West resists the temptation to put any modern revision on the classic story.
What he does, though, is steer hard into the more horrific elements of the story, going for frights with each ghost rather than save it for the Ghost of Christmas Future. It’s almost jarring to see the dialed-to-eleven creep vibe with Trammel Tillman and Andrea Riseborough’s performances. Enough that West has to pull out a minor twist in order to give the final ghost something to shock us with. While the frights are in line with the original story and its themes, it does push “Ebenezer” a little past, “good for the whole family” territory; it might be better to get a baby sitter for the little ones.
As mentioned before, Depp has a good time with his role, keeping it squarely within an appropriate grouchy-yet-comic range that never pushes things too far. McKellen might be even better, though his screen time is unfortunately brief (Marley seems to be a frequent scene-stealer, if you remember Alec Guinness’s turn in the 1970 film). Sam Claflin adds gravitas as Scrooge’s nephew Fred, and Rupert Grint makes for a sympathetic Bob Cratchit, even if it’s still hard to not see the actor as Ronald Weasley after all these years.
In spite of the good performances, “Ebenezer” probably won’t rank high on the all-time Christmas Carol list, though it should serve as a properly uplifting option for the 2026 Christmas season. And yes, it’s hard to watch the film without considering how the story might reflect the real-life public image turnaround of its star. If Dickens’ classic tells us anything, it’s that a little goodwill goes a long way.
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“Ebenezer” is rated PG-13 for frightening sequences and violence.