'I Heard the Bells' tells the story of how a series of personal tragedies prompted the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to pen the Christmas carol whose full title ends with "on Christmas Day". The first film from Sight and Sound, a company which specializes in overtly Christian stage productions, this movie does feels more like theater then film. The production design and costuming is decent enough, the cinematography unexecetional and the no name cast gives earnest but largely pedestrian performances.
The film's biggest problems are in the writting and directing, which lays practically everything on too thick. From the highest of highs to the lowest of lows the movie decrees to us that we are to be swept up in, nay overwhelmed by, Henry Longfellow's every emotion. The heavy hand took me aback, pushed me away rather then pulled me in. Though this is not everyone's experince, the only other person in the theater with me was audibly sniffling through the last 30 minutes, which is admittedly the best part of the film. So if you think Frank Capra's not corny enough and like a movie to tell you exactly what to feel and when, 'I Heard the Bells' may ring true. Otherwise it's a kind of cinematic tinnitus. *1/2
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