It’s about regret.

Regret. I’ve found that once you pass a certain age, regret becomes a potent and ever-present companion. I’m under no illusions; I am very much aware that I am in an extremely privileged position. It’s the idea of missed opportunities and coming to terms with the path your life has actually gone down. I wouldn’t like to run the risk of exploring the alternatives lest I risk losing what I have, but the concept is much more powerful now that more than half of my useful years are behind me.

As a storytelling conceit it tends to affect me so much stronger than it used to. It’s why The Muppet Christmas Carol, and to be fair, pretty much any version of the story (although I’m particularly fond of Michael Caine’s take, as well as Patrick Stewart’s, usually repeated on Channel 4 each year), is more emotionally affecting than Scrooged (not that I don’t dig Bill Murray’s version). The biggest emotional gut punch for Scrooge is when the Ghost of Christmas Past forces him to come face-to-face with the moment he sacrificed a future with the love of his life for something as mediocre as wealth. The ache to turn back the years and make the other choice is overwhelmingly heart-breaking. In the traditional telling of the tale, Scrooge must forever live with that choice – Murray gets a chance to rectify it, which loses a great deal of the power the story has.

It’s A Wonderful Life is another Christmas film that deals with the theme – all throughout, George Bailey has to make the choice to put his own ambitions on hold for the sake of others, and before he knows it, the chance has gone. Luckily for George, he’s able to content himself with the alternative life he built for himself over the years, but it wouldn’t have taken much to leave him filled with bitter regret. It’s a repeated trope in storytelling, and it’s precisely because it is so powerful; Magnolia is a non-Christmassy film that examines the nature of regret and how it affects us through various characters and it’s another one that has a very strong impact on me.

I guess the point (such as it is) is I don’t really think it’s possible to avoid regrets, and those that claim to regret nothing are perhaps not being completely honest with themselves.