With that in mind, there was never a man so genuinely good as George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life, so we can accept people being economical with the truth in the name of sentimentality. And that's what this film delivers, in spades. It's like Richard Curtis was thinking "Your girlfriend will cry, and you'll be damned close yourself. I demand it, and I shall put in scene after sentimental scene until you can resist no more." Every conceivable heart-string is tugged. Man pining after a woman he can't have not get you? Well perhaps a tragic bereaved widower will? No? Then how about a similarly bereaved child? He'll get you in the end, the swine.
The dialogue is pretty sharp and funny, and not everyone gets a happy ending, or at least not the one they deserve, which pulls the thing just clear of the mire of sentimentality. Just.
However, I would like to leave you with a list of things that are true in the
world of Richard Curtis, and nowhere else:
1) To Be In Love Is To Be Hideously Awkward, physically and socially, with the
object of your affections.
2) There is a political party in this country, that is neither Con, Lab or Lib,
which consists solely of Nice Pretty Middle Class People Under Forty. This
party has no policies, except for "provide Hugh Grant with a sumptuous flat."
This party has a good chance of winning the next election.
3) It is possible for a person to achieve a working fluency in a foreign
language in under a week.
Despite all, a genetically engineered Frankenstein of a feel-good movie, which manages to hit some of the right buttons despite seeming rather forced.
