An Open Letter to People Who Have Never Seen IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

hello,

I know you've all seen the last five minutes of the movie in aggregate over the years and think it's treacly, sentimental piffle -- "Capra-corn" by any other name. You're wrong and you're missing out on a delightfully subversive movie that sticks it to all the stupid people you know who love the ending but can't recall much of the story before it. ["It's a nightmare, or something? George sees how bad life would have been without him?"] Flush out everything you've ever heard about IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE [the title is totally sarcastic, by the way] out of your head and go watch the only absolute must-see Capra; you'll thank me later.

Here's the plot: A scandal-plagued Savings & Loan officer ponders suicide when a careerist ghost shows him how a lifetime of compromise, deferring his dreams and dumbing himself down in order to fit into a boring, bland world of mediocrities has lead to passive-aggressive spousal abuse, depression and impotent rage. The ghost then presents him with an alternate reality that unwittingly reveals that the suffocatingly small town that this miserable asshole lives in actually would have been more interesting without him. The S&L guy doesn't seem to notice this -- his critical-thinking skills never developed beyond "slightly better than the bewildered herd" then changes his mind about dying so that he can resume his codependent relationship with the town. Then comes the yelling, kissing and winking you've already seen. The End.