The “spirited”: the spirits that everyone already knows

A musical parody of Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” heats up. Streaming to Apple TV.

Wikipedia lists 51 films based on Charles DickensA Christmas Story is based on, and other sources mention 135 adaptations. No wonder Bart complains in an episode of The Simpsons about the ingenuity of TV producers who have been milking this cow for years. To prove it, he turns on the TV, which plays zany sitcoms and Star Trek versions of the 1843 tale, starring Steve Urkel and Captain Kirk as ghosts.

However, the fact that a moral ideal from early industrial England, which at the same time became a model, is now also a model for “Spirited,” a comic fantasy musical, shouldn’t stop you. Because the dark parody draws its charm precisely from the fact that today everyone knows the story of the cleansing of the angry money-lender Ebenezer Scrooge inside and out. Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds), the amoral social media entrepreneur as a cross between Gene Kelly and Elon Musk) instantly remembers Bill Murray from The Ghosts I Called when three ghosts came to see him at Christmas, only smiling wearily at their haunted offerings. In particular, ambitious attempts at a present-day soul (brilliant: goofball Will Ferrell) fail because of the ruthlessness of fake news and Dirty Storm producer, who immediately sees his metaphysical time travel as a cheap mummy. So the angelic visitor who works in the universal institution for the education of selfish contemporaries must strive for authenticity. No less filmmakers. And that they do, with grandiose song-and-dance interludes and all sorts of amusing alienation effects.