The review

George Bailey wants out, and the movie loves him for wanting a larger life, and then it makes the case that the larger life was the one he kept refusing to abandon. Potter is what industry looks like with no neighbor in it. George is what it looks like when a man uses a small institution to keep ordinary people from being owned.

It is sentimental. Sentiment is not a sin when the facts underneath are solid. The facts are solid. A good name, a wife who tells the truth, a house full of drafty rooms and children, a town that shows up with cash because you showed up for years. If the irony of the age has gotten into your joints, watch this in December or in June and let it offend you back to life.