The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey | |
---|---|
Directed by | Bill Clark |
Written by | Bill Clark |
Produced by | Philippe Martinez |
Starring | Tom Berenger Joely Richardson Lia Williams Jenny O'Hara Ronald Pickup |
Release date |
|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $8 million |
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey is a 2007 British film scripted and directed by Bill Clark. [1] [2] It was adapted from a 1995 book of the same name, written by Susan Wojciechowski and illustrated by P. J. Lynch.
Jonathan Toomey is a woodcarver known throughout the village for his skill but also for his solemn, joyless demeanor; bereaved by the past loss of his wife and child to illness, he is known to the village children as "Mr. Gloomy" and lives alone on the edge of town.
In early December, a newly arrived widow named McDowell and her young son, Thomas, commission Jonathan for a Nativity Scene figurine set to replace a lost heirloom. Jonathan gruffly takes the job, but rebuffs her desire to have them ready by Christmas, finding the occasion "pish-posh". The next week, McDowell and Thomas arrive with the latter begging to watch him work while the mother knits; Jonathan begrudgingly allows this, so long as they are quiet. This becomes a regular occurrence, with McDowell bringing baked goods and a wreath for Jonathan. Thomas occasionally offers instructions to Jonathan, who becomes fond of the visitors and accepts to teach the boy how to carve. However, Jonathan still shows reservations, forbidding McDowell from sitting in a rocking chair or using a special embroidered cloth from his drawer on the table, both of which had belonged to his late wife.
Having completed an angel, two sheep, a cow, the three Wise Men, and Joseph by Christmas Eve, all that is left are the carvings of Mary and the infant Jesus. Jonathan still makes no promises of finishing the set in time, but is touched by the gifts of a warm scarf from McDowell and a carved robin from Thomas. He struggles through the night, finally allowing himself to grieve; using the likeness his late wife and child for Mary and Jesus, Jonathan is able complete the set and personally deliver it on Christmas Morning. He then joins McDowell and Thomas in joyfully attending the morning service, no longer "Mr. Gloomy" in the eyes of the village children.
The 91-minute film directed by Bill Clark starred Tom Berenger, Joely Richardson, Saoirse Ronan and Luke Ward-Wilkinson. Among other casts were Benjamin Eli, Jack Montgomery and Jenny O'Hara. It played at eight film festivals including the Gloria Film Festival at Salt Lake City where it was named "Best Film – 2007". It was released on DVD in the US later that year, in the UK and the Netherlands 2008, and in Germany 2011.[ citation needed ] In December 2015 it received its national UK TV premier on C5.
The 32-page children's picture book was written by Susan Wojciechowski, illustrated by P. J. Lynch, and published by Walker Books in 1995 ( ISBN 978-0-7445-4007-9). One newspaper called it "the story of a gloomy woodcutter who gradually recovers his ability to find joy in life" and reported sales in the United States exceeding one million copies. For his part in that collaboration, Lynch won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. [3] According to the retrospective citation, woodcarver Toomey accepts the job of creating nativity figurines for a widow and her son, and thereby resolves long-held grief for his own wife and child. [3]
Walker's American division Candlewick Press published a U.S. edition within the calendar year (Library of Congress Classification PZ7.W8183 Ch 1995; ISBN 978-1-56402-320-9). [4] An audiobook narrated by James Earl Jones was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2001. [5]
Mary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress, comedian, singer, and songwriter. After studying at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1970s, she made her professional acting debut in the Western comedy film Goin' South (1978). Steenburgen went on to earn critical acclaim for her role in Time After Time (1979) and Jonathan Demme's comedy-drama film Melvin and Howard (1980), for which she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Jonathan Harshman Winters was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist. He started performing as a stand up comedian before transitioning his career to acting in film and television. Winters received numerous accolades including two Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, the American Academy of Achievement in 1973, and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1999.
Raymond Redvers Briggs was an English illustrator, cartoonist, graphic novelist and author. Achieving critical and popular success among adults and children, he is best known in Britain for his 1978 story The Snowman, a book without words whose cartoon adaptation is televised and whose musical adaptation is staged every Christmas.
The Carnegie Medal for Illustration is a British award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) which inherited it from the Library Association.
Victor Ambrus was a Hungarian-born British illustrator of history, folk tales, and animal story books. He also became known from his appearances on the Channel 4 television archaeology series Time Team, on which he visualised how sites under excavation may have once looked. Ambrus was an Associate of the Royal College of Art and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers. He was also a patron of the Association of Archaeological Illustrators and Surveyors up until its merger with the Institute for Archaeologists in 2011.
Christmas Child is a 2004 American Christian film directed by William Ewing starring Steven Curtis Chapman. The film is based on "The Christmas Cross", a short story by Max Lucado repackaged in 2003 as The Christmas Child: A Story of Coming Home, and is a story about a Chicago journalist who finds himself in Clearwater, Texas around Christmas time to discover his past.
Chris Riddell is a South African-born English illustrator and occasional writer of children's books and a political cartoonist for the Observer. He has won three Kate Greenaway Medals – the British librarians' annual award for the best-illustrated children's book, and two of his works were commended runners-up, a distinction dropped after 2002.
Graham Oakley was an English writer and illustrator best known for children's books.
Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg were a British married couple who created many children's books, including picture books that regularly appear at the top of "most popular" lists for public libraries. They worked together for 20 years until Janet's death from cancer in 1994. He wrote the books and she illustrated them. Allan Ahlberg has also written dozens of books with other illustrators.
Father Christmas is a British children's picture book written and drawn by Raymond Briggs and published by Hamish Hamilton in 1973. Briggs won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. For the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005), a panel named it one of the top ten winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite.
Patrick James Lynch, known professionally as P. J. Lynch, is an Irish artist and illustrator of children's books. He has won a number of awards, including two Kate Greenaway Medals and three Christopher Awards. His most successful book, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski, has sold more than a million copies in the United States alone.
The Jolly Postman or Other People's Letters is an interactive children's picture book by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. The innovative project required five years to complete, and much discussion with both the publisher Heinemann and the printer before it was issued in 1986. The first subject heading assigned by WorldCat is "Toy and movable books". Little, Brown published a U.S. edition in the same year.
Luke Ward-Wilkinson is an English actor and singer known for his lead role as the teenage Simon Doonan in the BBC comedy series Beautiful People which ran for two series (2008–2009) on BBC Two.
A Child's Christmas in Wales is a piece of prose by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas recorded by Thomas in 1952. Emerging from an earlier piece he wrote for BBC Radio, the work is an anecdotal reminiscence of a Christmas from the viewpoint of a young boy, portraying a nostalgic and simpler time. It is one of Thomas's most popular works.
Nativity! 2: Danger in the Manger is a 2012 British Christmas comedy film written and directed by Debbie Isitt, an improvised Christmas comedy and the second instalment in the Nativity film series. The film focuses on Donald Peterson, an anxious primary school teacher, who embarks on a wild and heartwarming adventure with his class and teaching assistant, the childlike Mr Poppy, as they travel to Wales to perform in a Christmas singing competition.
The Legend of the Christmas Spider is an Eastern European folktale which explains one possible origin of tinsel on Christmas trees. It is most prevalent in Western Ukraine, where small ornaments in the shape of a spider are traditionally a part of the Christmas decorations.
The Snowman is a wordless children's picture book by British author Raymond Briggs, first published in 1978 by Hamish Hamilton in the United Kingdom, and published by Random House in the United States in November of the same year. The book won a number of awards and was adapted into an animated television film in 1982 which is an annual fixture at Christmas.
Christmas traditions include a variety of customs, religious practices, rituals, and folklore associated with the celebration of Christmas. Many of these traditions vary by country or region, while others are practiced virtually identically worldwide.