Miracle on 34th Street

I can't see why a retelling of a really good story gets panned. It stayed true to the original concept, that believing in something good, even if it only comes once a year, can make us better. If I may reference another Christmas classic of which there have been several worthy interpretations, "Scrooge" (1951), the young Scrooge says to the young Marley upon their meeting, "I believe the world is becoming a very hard and cruel place...". If it was that way in the 1800's, it's ten times worse today, and therefore all the more reason to be reminded of our better nature. I especially enjoyed the scene where the streets of New York City were filled with throngs of people, traffic on the bridges was stopped, all waiting for the verdict. I know NYC well, and how its people rise to such occasions. These scenes were not in the 1947 version, and I think they added a uniqueness to this version. Better, worse than the 1947 version? Neither - just different, and just as valid.

Richard Attenborough returned to acting after 14 years behind the camera in "Jurassic Park", and followed it swiftly by daring to challenge comparison with Oscar-winner Edmund Gwenn in this remake.

As a heartwarmer for those inadequates who won't sit through a 60-year-old monochrome movie-- albeit one which rivals "It's a Wonderful Life" as Hollywood's answer to "A Christmas Carol"-- this John Hughes revamp will probably serve. Anyhow, there are plenty of copies on sale at the checkout of my local supermarket. But it is a bit too laid-back and, latterly, too bogged down in argument for younger kids or older boys. It may warm more cockles among the grandparents.

The main thematic interest is how Hughes chooses to tweak the original screen story as adapted (unusually for the time) by the director, George Seaton. Whether he sought to or not, the remake has thrown up some intriguing twists for a more skeptical and secular time.

The oldie caught the mood of an America yearning to get back to normalcy amid the perils of the post-war, Cold War world. Location shooting in New York City, with much co-operation from Macys, gave a touch of realism to the fantasy, whereas in 1994 it's an imaginary store and (for Americans, at least) an incongruously "veddy British" claimant to the chair of Santa Claus- although his nationality is not the issue when the legal meanies of the State of New York try to get him confined to the bughouse.

What is striking is the judge's rationale for allowing Kris's plea for freedom. Because US bills have "In God We Trust" on them, he reasons, it means New York is allowed to have blind faith in the existence of a supernatural being who lays presents on 1.7 billion children in one night, operating from invisible workshops with reindeer which cannot be made to fly in a courtroom demonstration of his powers because it isn't Christmas Eve. Besides, the sneery prosecutor's kids were raised to believe in him, so there- case closed.

In real life the ACLU would be appealing such a judgement all the way to the Supreme Court for allowing too much religion into the law and the public square. "In God We Trust" was only put on the money during the Cold War, to cock a snook at "Godless bolshevism"; but this film is refreshingly disrespectful to the newer orthodoxy of playing down most Americans' beliefs in their films.

Kris asks if he should swear in the Bible, the Pope's ruling on Nicholas's sanctity is debated, and the ethos is quietly but unmistakably Christian. No "spiritual" Santa or "Happy Holidays" here. In a very light fashion, the film does revolve issues of how far it is legitimate to maintain a metaphor as a source of inspiration when rationalism of the Dawkins and Hitchens strain is sniping at it. The screenplay also looks quite beadily at the way commercial operators use holy myth to make money, even if the message comes muted from Hollywood.

That is the good news. There's plenty to carp at as well.

Attenborough's quiet, gentle but firm performance (most atypical of one who spent his previous acting time mainly playing unreliables or martinets) suffuses the film. He gets little competition, save from the contrasted crustiness of Windom. Most of the support is so-so, on the level of a Yuletide TV special, and not excluding little Wilson as the girl who has faith in Mr Kringle's claim to be St Nicholas. She is no Margaret O'Brien, if no worse in her way than the kewpie-doll Natalie Wood. In fact, she's a John Hughes moppet who did little later and nothing since 2000.

The narrative's departures from the well shaped original are no help. Once off the legal hook, Kris, wearing a brown suit, just disappears-- we don't see any triumphal sleigh ride to bid him adieu-- while attention shifts to a ridiculous post-midnight-mass impromptu wedding in a Catholic church. Then follows a trip out to a dream house in the snowy country, ushered by a silly salesman. The film does not seem to know when to call a halt, and there's not so much as Clarence's tinkling bell to bring back Kris at the close. It's as if the whole object of the exercise was to unite two bland characters in matrimony.

To give the movie its deserved credit, Richard Attenborough is a wonderful successor to the iconic Kris Kingle as played by Edmund Gwenn in George Seaton's seminal Christmas classic "Miracle on 34th Street" and Mara Wilson is just as good as the little girl who doesn't believe in Santa but wishes she could and only asks for a proof. In fact, she embodies our very attitude toward the film, we love the original, we want to embrace this one with the same enthusiasm, so we're waiting for the script to charm us.

And it's only fair to have high anticipations, the film was made in 1994 when commercialism was as preeminent as five decades later, and written by John Hughes who could give a subtle dimension of satire and benign cynicism, all these elements could have given an edge to the 1994 remake. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really manages to deliver: when it's good, it's just as good as the original, the rest of the time, it's just a pale copy that fails to capture the the taste of its era. This film could have been made in the 80's or the 70's as well because the story is timeless, but not in the 'appealing' meaning of the word.

It's incredible but "Miracle on 34th Street" manages to feel more dated than its glorious predecessor, the 1947 version starring Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara and young Natalie Wood. Maybe the remake was liable to feel dated because the 1947 classic was already ahead of its time for its take on Christmas consumerism, its portrayal of a divorced mother and a precocious girl (tired tropes today), so any attempt to duplicate the charm of the movie was likely to fail... unless it tried to modernize the original premise a little bit.

The problem with Les Mayfield's movie and John Hughes' screenplay is that the two men seem to be in awe with the original and never really dare to make the original structure shatter, not a bit. As a result, we have quite exactly the same movie, and the changes operated in this one never feel as improvements but rather inspire the opposite feeling. For instance, the climactic trial scene with the bags of mail delivered on the courtroom is only replaced by a parallel drawn between the existence of Santa Claus and the faith in God which, as smart as it is, is anticlimactic and leaves many things in wanting.

We all know the story is heading toward a heart-warming and magical conclusion but there's just something curiously depressing in the turn of events that lead the gentle Kris Kingle in jail and the way his aura immediately fades while the set-up of his downfall is quite obvious. There was a moment where I expectedKingle to tell that the man he assaulted had just literally accused him of the worst possible crime and had the punch coming, but the scene dangerously flirts with the idiotic plot where the lines that can get you off the hook aren't said, for no other reason that they're waiting for the right moment.

I feel a bit guilty to be so judgmental, again there's that snow beard in Richard Attenborough and that glee in his eyes that makes many scenes with him very touching, I loved his interaction with the deaf girl (a smart remake of the Dutch scene), his chemistry with Mara Wilson hit the right chord, and that little girl is a genuinely good actress conveying the right mix of smartness and innocence (a bit like a real-life Lisa Simpson). But the film reminded me of that scene where Kingle and Bryan, the lawyer enamored with Susan's mother, and played by Dylan McDermott, discuss about the mother (Elizabeth Perkins) and say there's something quite sad about her.

There's something sad in the film as well, sometimes, Elizabeth Perkins overplay that feeling and make any scene she's in a killjoy, even her romance with Dylan, while integral to the original happy ending, are only inserted in the movie as an 'obligation' but it's obvious these moments slow down the script more than anything. There are a few good characters in the film, the judge played by a scene-stealing Robert Prosky, the so underrated J.T. Walsh as the prosecutor but the film loses its way in many unnecessary plot points, and escalate to a trial where we feel cheated because we didn't have our bags of mail, after all, there was no Internet yet in 1994, it could work.

The film is still an enchanting moment that can please any child of any age, but it lacks that little sharpness, the taste of modernity it needed, and luck, too. Macy's didn't want its name associated with the film so they had to come up with a fictional company had to invent a and make the rival an evil businessman, missing the opportunity of the 'marketing policy' subplot that made the first film so ahead of its time. It's like Mayfield and Hughes didn't trust their own material, they had so charming protagonists who could carry the film alone, who needed villains? Especially when the "system" or the world's cynicism was good enough an antagonist.

A good film nonetheless, but so one-dimensional in its treatment it feels dated by the original film's standards.

To watch with the family, especially children. It tried me with some tears it's true, but it wasn't as emotional as I thought. Cute, funny, not boring, it could have been better, but I'm grateful. I want to see the original now. Thank you! Merry Christmas!

I remember seeing the original movie Miracle on 34th Street, that movie could never be replace with this version. This is the best updated remake of a classic story. There are some difference between the movies, but it is almost the same plot. If I could not find the original movie playing on TV during the holidays, this is the one worth watching.