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As the holidays descend, it\u2019s once again time to engage in our favorite tradition: questioning the sometimes bizarre storylines of beloved yuletide classics. Love Actually<\/em>\u2019s tangled plotlines are a favorite target, with even Keira Knightley<\/strong> calling her character\u2019s storyline, involving her husband\u2019s best friend and those infamous cue cards, \u201cquite creepy.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n But today, we\u2019re looking all the way back to the twinkling star that stands atop all other pull-your-heartstrings Christmas flicks: Frank Capra\u2019s It\u2019s a Wonderful Life.<\/em><\/p>\n For those somehow unfamiliar, here\u2019s the heartwarming setup: Hardworking family man George Bailey (played by the apple-pie-with-an-edge Jimmy Stewart) faces ruinous financial trouble. He contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve before Clarence, a guardian angel, intervenes by giving George a chance to see what the world would be like without him.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em> then shows in almost dizzying succession just how badly things would unravel if George never existed. \u201cEach man\u2019s life,\u201d Clarence angelically explains, \u201ctouches so many other lives.\u201d<\/p>\n So what, exactly, are the dire consequences avoided by George\u2019s existence?<\/p>\n For starters, the local checkered-tablecloth Italian restaurant has gone straight to hell and is now a dive bar. Nick the bartender won\u2019t serve flaming rum punches, apparently a staple in heaven, and nobody smiles anymore.<\/p>\n Old Man Gower, George\u2019s former boss at the pharmacy where he worked as a youth, ends up poisoning a child and doing a 20-year stretch behind bars. The druggist also becomes a \u201crum hound,\u201d which perhaps explains the lack of punch.<\/p>\n As never-been-born George watches the by-gosh reality he once treasured curdle, he tears through the once idyllic town of Bedford Falls looking for the perfectly turned-out mother he knows. Instead, he finds a \u201cMa\u201d running a boarding house. And George\u2019s Uncle Billy? Ma explains he\u2019s been locked away in an insane asylum ever since he lost his business.<\/p>\n Soon enough, George realizes his wholesome American town has become Pottersville, a tawdry neon strip that looks like a 1940s fever dream of vice\u2014all neon lights, garish bars, dancing girls, and desperation.<\/p>\n Then comes the wrenching graveyard scene. George discovers his brother Harry\u2019s tombstone: Without George pulling his younger sibling from the icy water years earlier, Harry drowned after their sledding-on-a-shovel accident. Every soldier Harry would have saved on a transport during the war perishes too. The audience is left to wonder whether the Allies even won World War II without the kids from Bedford Falls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n