[5.8/10] There’s not much here for people already familiar with the story of *A Christmas Carol*The adaptation is relatively straight, with a few visual flourishes but otherwise sticking closely to the source material in both dialogue and the narrative progression. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but it means folks who’ve seen everyone from Michael Caine to Daffy Duck take on the role of Scrooge already, there’s little new or noteworthy here in the adaptation to catch your fancy.

The best thing the 1971 animated *A Christmas Carol* has going for it are some neat backgrounds and impressionistic sequences. Legendary animator, and the film’s director, Richard Williams, gives Dickens’ tale a gritty realism in its aesthetic. Seeing grimy 1840s London, or a bustling city street, or an overhead shot of gravestones helps convey the sense of grit and gristle in the setting of the tale. In several sequences, Williams and company make good use of lighting and darkness, with Scrooge fumbling in blackness or awakening to shining rays in ways that catch the eye. And the most notable moments in the film come when the various spirits whisk Scrooge from one backdrop to another with a dizzying fluidity.

To the point, the stand out sequence of the film comes when the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge on a mini tour of various would-be sad sacks, all singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and full of the spirit of the season despite their troubles. It’s the one novel part of the adaptation, one of the more visually interesting set pieces, and something which still conveys the message of the original story well.

The problem is that those visual flourishes are few and far between. For most of the short film, characters just stand in rooms going back-and-forth with one another. There’s a drab, almost cheap quality to a lot of it. And the designs of the characters themselves, not to mention their movements, are off-putting. The bent toward realism means that when Williams and company don’t quite reach it, the results are disturbing. Characters’ faces and undulations seem inhuman and even grotesque in certain moments, and their gestures are fluid, but just off enough to be slightly unnerving. When Williams goes big, it pays off, but when he tries to just animate a few people talking, the results are unfortunate at best.

Granted, in some places, the uncanny valley nature of the characters’ visages works in *A Christmas Carol*’s favor. The ghost of Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Past in particularly are off in their proportions and their movements as animated, but that works for characters who are supposed to be a little eerie, if not downright terrifying, and so rightfully seem a bit “off” being evanescent and interstitial visitors to this mortal coil.

Still, when Williams’ version of *A Christmas Carol* isn’t (intentionally or unintentionally) creepy; it’s downright boring. The cadence of the film is completely off. For a fairly talky film, there’s never a sense of characters being in conversation, just actors spitting lines at one another with awkward, halting rhythms. Alastair Sim, who reprises the role from the 1951 live action adaptation, is unexpectedly tepid in the role, seeming mild to the point of disinterest. But he’s not alone; there’s an overall stilted quality to the performances here, which suggest it’s a product of being directed rather than an individual acting choice.

Williams and his team don’t include much in the way of score, which is a choice I typically admire, particularly for an outing like this one with a bent toward realism. But given the disjointed rhythms of the conversations, and the failure of the actors to gin up much emotion on their own, the 1971 *Christmas Carol* could certainly use some non-diegetic music here or there to help keep the energy and sentiment of the piece up.

Overall, Williams’ *A Christmas Carol* is an interesting curio for those who appreciate the history of animation, or just those who enjoy contrasting and comparing different adaptations of such a venerable part of the seasonal canon. But unfortunately, the film doesn’t have all that much to offer on its own merits.