Dan Stevens is a charming and charasmatic presence as Charles Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas but he is given a tough task, he has to portray a man in the midst of the creative process and a creative process that is blocked. In real life this is staring at a wall for most of us and doing lots of the things that come under the heading of procrastination. To make it entertaining Stevens has to play this type of dry spell like it is coursing through his veins like some stimulating drug rather than something that drags you down. For the sake of a screen version of this story it has to be this way, otherwise you have a dull film. Stevens plays this role perfectly and is the anchor that makes the film an enjoyable watch.

Fortunately the film is populated with some excellent British acting talent lead by the unredoubtable Christoper Plummer, Johnathan Price and Simon Callow although Callow is close to being a cameo as Dickens famed illustrator John Leech. I think he is contractually obliged to act in all Dickens passed films or TV shows. Having 'favourites' I was pleased to see Justin Edwards and Miles Jupp (Thackeray) popping up during the storyline so I am biased.

There is a good mixture of comedy sprinkled throughout the running but it is part of the story and not the overriding reason for the story. The story, whilst seeming original, is in fact close to Shakespeare in Love with events and people in Dickens life shaping his latest story. The method is different, yet not original, where the characters Dickens is creating appear and interact with him. On the plus side this could have been very clunky but director Nalluri and the actors handle is well and smoothly. It was fun.

The film definitely assumes you have some working knowledge of Dickens and his novels but this is in fact a plus point. There is no hand holding here or one-hundred weight exposition crushing the proceedings. The story leaves us in no mind that Dickens reinvented Christmas soley through Christmas Carol but does not really explore how Christmas was celebrated before then, other than nearly all bosses appear to be Scrooge clones, so much so that getting inspiration should not have been that hard for the author. These are all piffling points and you should not really go into the film looking for an accurate depiction of Charles Dickens or the times, that is another film.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is fun, well acted, film but like many in this type of category you watch it and enjoy it but it's soon forgotten.