It's a wonderful reason to jump off a bridge

Rating: 1/10 (17 March 2009)

Of all the male stars of Hollywood's studio-dominated 'classic' era, James Stewart was the hammiest. He almost always shouts when a whisper would do; instead of striking an impressive pose, he's always squirming about, arms flailing. He's the melodramatic version of Jerry Lewis.
His way-over-the-top performance in "It's a Wonderful Life" lingers like the taste of lettuce fried in lard atop a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich on a moldy McDonalds burger roll.
But then there's the story itself. It's notable that Capra waited until the Depression was largely over before putting together this dreadful lie about it (which is what this film is really about). Apparently the banks didn't spend years foreclosing homes and farms? No one was displaced, we all held together in the small towns we grew up in? Family's weren't shattered and careers not ruined? It's wonderful baloney to serve with peanut-butter and fried lettuce.
It's deplorable that American's think of this as a "Christmas classic." Christmas should be about joy, not self-centered delusion. The truth is, the world would have been the stronger is Stewart's character had never been born. The people in it need to find real reasons for living, not Capra's pandering.