A reinvention of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The radical new take on Dickens' classic seeks both to exhume the original story's gritty commentary on social inequality and the corrupting influence of greed, and to breathe new life into the lyricism of the original text by setting its scenes to extraordinary tableaux of modern dance.

The opening scenes of the film follow a Victorian family preparing a toy theatre for their annual performance of 'A Christmas Carol'. As the family's grandmother narrates the much-edited story and her grandchildren change the scenery, we enter the imagination of one of the children in the audience and watch as the cardboard stage, and the story with it, transforms into a darkly fantastical otherworld.