Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is right around the corner. To get in the holiday mood, there is no better Christmas tale than “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. This book is a classic and there are film and stage adaptations of it. However, this year there is something a little different.

“The Man Who Invented Christmas” is a wonderful movie written by Susan Coyne and directed by Bharat Nalluri. Dan Stevens stars as writer Charles Dickens. The movie takes place during the time when Dickens had published his previous book, “Oliver Twist.” The book had done very well and Dickens was on a mission to write another one, which will become “A Christmas Carol.”

Stevens does a remarkable job as Dickens. He portrays a passionate, likeable character with a bit of a temper. Dickens’ backstory is a very interesting one in that his father was arrested when he was 11 and he had to go work in a boot blacking factory. Throughout the movie, he is haunted by his experiences at the factory. He had been tormented by the other boys which made him grow up fast.

However, while the story was very well written, there were several film techniques that should have been done a little differently. The first of which was an overuse of theatrical smoke. In almost every single shot there was a heavy fog. For some of the shots, it worked well by giving extra style to the scene, however in other shots, it was completely overdone and unnecessary.

The second film technique was random shaky camera movements. At points, the scene looked almost like it was documentary style, but it was not consistent throughout. The camera would be so still at some points and moving unsteadily at others.

Overall, the story was really amazing and the actors were all really talented. I give this four and a half stars out of five, because of some minor technical issues.

Caitlyn Young can be reached at [email protected] or @Orion_CaitlynY on Twitter.