It took me forever to finally watch this, and now that I have, I don’t get why this is a Christmas classic. Sure, it commences on Christmas, but it could have ended on any other day, and the story would be the same. Anyway, that's more of an aside.
Okay, so, _It's a Wonderful Life_ is really two movies: one is a typical 1940s' saccharine love story; the other is a fatalist, and oddly Christian, episode of The Twilight Zone.
As is, the movie doesn’t get interesting until the third act, which is the aforementioned twist that the film is best known for, but it just didn't work for me and really feels like a lazy deus ex machina. Honestly, without the twist, I would have liked the movie more, but there is no way it would have ever become the classic it is without it.
The bulk of the story is spent going through the life of George Bailey, from a boy to a man. He "falls in love" with Mary Hatch, in a way that could only be seen as charming in a movie, especially one from that era.
The first and second act are a slog, however some of the dialog with James Stewart, and Donna Reed was rather touching, and funny.
I mentioned before that this is two movies in one. What I mean is without the supernatural component it's the story of a man who has affected others, by merely existing, and sometimes by being a good person. As a result, people care about him. Nice. I like it.
The other part - the ending - shows us a different present: one where George had not existed. Turns out life in his little town would be radically changed, not just that, but detrimentally so. Which, okay, this is fiction, and that works if you don't think about it too hard, but I tend to do so. I reckon that's why the movie doesn't land with me. If you're going to place a mundane story in the scope of the supernatural and want people to come away with a message, well, you're on a tightrope of movie reality versus reality.
This takes us into the land of fatalism: Just think of all the people who do not exist who could have. Consider the butterfly effect of events, and how life events could happen in any number of possible ways. For instance, let's say your brother were to fall into a frozen lake. Now, if you were never born, what's to say he would have fallen into said lake? What's to say he wouldn't have been saved by other boys if he still fell in? Can good never come from bad? Can bad never lead to good? I'm reminded of the Chinese proverb, which looks at the circumstances of life, remarking "maybe so, maybe not. We'll see."
If people want to look at this as an endearing classic about kindness and community, great, do that. Trouble is, suicide doesn't unmake someone's past. We all die, and once we do, it doesn't unweave our life, as if we were never here.
Lastly, the idea that tragedy was always there, waiting to happen, if not for one person in particular, has greater theological problems that I do not want to get into. I'll leave that to the... believers out there.