IN THE film I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day (Cert. PG), we witness utter gladness turning to inconsolable sadness for the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
On 9 July 1861, tragedy strikes at the heart of his well-appointed Massachusetts home when his second wife, Fanny (Rachel Day Hughes), dies from a fire accident. We have seen how joyful a life they have led. She is his morning star, his joy, his crown. Stephen Atherholt’s portrayal gives the impression of someone holding on to faith by virtue of the sheer goodness radiating from her religious devotion. On hearing church bells, she tells him: “They take me to sacred places, ringing out peace on earth.”
Henry, however, is sceptical about poor talkative Christianity. He prefers to imagine how hopeful it would be if they were the only voices of the church. Such dialogue is a little surprising from someone highly involved from his youth up in the Unitarian Church. Becoming a scholar, Longfellow was the first American to translate Dante’s The Divine Comedy, and, for a Puritan, he displayed remarkable empathy with Catholic theology. This gifted poet, who has been described as “Christ-haunted”, was someone who could put words to feelings that we all have at times. Yet, beset by grievous loss, he was unable to address a nation ravaged by civil war. Not only that, but the divisions it created spilt over into his family life, too.
The film is well acted throughout, with high production values. The earlier scenes are perhaps a trifle too idyllic, matched by lighting and cinematography that indulges an over-effulgent mood. It all serves to split the film abruptly into a sunny Before and a gloomy After. Longfellow’s son Charley (Jonathan Blair) voices what his father is also experiencing, when he yells at him: “I will not put hope in a God who’s sleeping or a God that’s dead.” Yet, a couple of decades previously, the poet had declared “Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers” (“Psalm of Life”).
This has now become the reality. Eventually bringing himself to read Fanny’s journal, he happens on her eloquent description of being blessed when receiving the sacrament. (The visuals make it clear that it is not a Unitarian church.) Longfellow takes his troubles to the chapel. The minister (Chris Faith) smooths balm into Henry’s wounded soul. Fanny continues to be a real presence through her writing, he says, just as Christ is through the Bible.
Henry’s reawakening feels a little too pat, especially as the film never alludes to the fact its protagonist suffered bouts of depression all his life. Loss of Fanny exacerbated an ongoing condition. It makes one wonder whether the faith-based production company Sight and Sound has tried too hard to deliver a Christian punchline. The director, Joshua Enck, has barely put a foot wrong till then, but this scene has the effect of reducing Longfellow’s ultimate composition of the titular poem-cum-carol into something that is all too predictable and rushed.
“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is available to buy or rent on digital from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.