Ebbie
| Ebbie | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Miracle at Christmas: Ebbie's Story |
| Genre | Drama Fantasy |
| Written by | Paul Redford Ed Redlich |
| Directed by | George Kaczender |
| Starring |
Susan Lucci Wendy Crewson Ron Lea Molly Parker Taran Noah Smith |
| Music by | Lawrence Shragge |
| Country of origin | Canada United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Jean Abounader |
| Producer(s) |
Harold Tichenor Jayme Pfahl (co-producer) |
| Editor(s) | Roger Mattiussi |
| Running time | 96 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Crescent Entertainment |
| Distributor | Lifetime |
| Release | |
| Original network | Lifetime |
| Original release |
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Ebbie or Miracle at Christmas: Ebbie's Story is a 1995 TV movie directed by George Kaczender, written by Ed Redlich, and starring Susan Lucci in the title role. It is a gender-reversed retelling of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, with a hard-hearted female character in place of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge.
The title character is businesswoman Elizabeth "Ebbie" Scrooge, played by Lucci. Ebbie has never appreciated Christmas, and has been rotten to the holidays. She doesn't give to the needy, doesn't care about her employees at Dobson's (the store she owns), and most of all, she works on Christmas. One night, the ghost of her partner, Jake Marley (counterpart to Dickens' Jacob Marley character, played here by Jeffrey DeMunn), haunts her. She is soon brought back to a deserted Dobson's, where the Ghosts of Christmas Past (Jennifer Clement and Nicole Parker) show her the Christmases she has celebrated. They take her to a very significant Christmas when her sister Francine (Molly Parker) died after nearly miscarrying her niece due to toxemia of pregnancy (Ebbie believes that Francine would have survived had Ebbie not left her alone to attend a party); it is also the Christmas she met her soon-to-be boyfriend Paul (Ron Lea). They show her many other Christmases, including another grim one when Paul leaves her when she chooses to care more about her job than about them as a couple, when she and Marley take over Dobson's, and finally, the previous year, when Jake Marley died.
The Ghost of Christmas Present (Lorena Gale) shows her the life of her assistant Roberta Cratchet (Wendy Crewson), her daughter Martha (Laura Harris) and her son Tiny Tim (Taran Noah Smith). Next, she sees the party that she is invited to every year by her niece (also Molly Parker), but has always declined; everyone toast Ebbie, but her niece does not drink (the reason being that she is pregnant). She sees Paul and his wife and children, and Ignorance and Poverty in the form of feral homeless children, while the ghost shoves all of her harsh words back at her. Then, the Ghost of Christmas Future shows her many terrible futures, including one where Tiny Tim has died, one where Dobson's is shut down, and one where she herself dies in a hospital flat broke after being hit by a car and nobody comes to see her. After the experience, Ebbie becomes a better person. She is shown the next morning, where she bids good morning to the doorman, and he is surprised. She also orders a large turkey for the Cratchets, donates money for the poor children, buys a coat for a homeless woman (Elan Ross Gibson) and offers her a job, gives Rita a raise (so Rita no longer needs to work her second job), gives a better job to Roberta, and finally attends the party her niece has been inviting her to. The movie ends with Ebbie at the Cratchets' house, eating dinner with them.
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