It's Christmas Eve and Ricky, redundant, separated and drunk, crashes his car and somehow ends up in Pottersville, the nightmare town from his favorite film; worse still he's ruined Clarence the Angel's scheme to get George Bailey back to Bedford Falls. Can Ricky make amends and if so will he go back with George?

SYNOPSIS:

At the Christmas Office party Ricky’s boss makes him redundant. Returning home he finds that his wife Diane has left him. Ricky gets drunk and attempts to drive home. Falling asleep at the wheel he narrowly avoids a lanky man in the middle of the road only to hit a small pudgy man and crashes his car. He wakes up to find the vehicle feet away from a raging river and slipping slowly toward it. Accepting his fate he awaits a watery grave but suddenly a stranger appears and rescues him. Once they reach safety Ricky discovers his saviour is George Bailey, the character from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. Ricky understands that, according to the nightmare scenario, he is in Pottersville but nevertheless is convinced he’s dreaming. After George runs off into town Clarence appears, and now realises that Clarence was the small guy he thought he’d killed with his car. Reluctantly he begins to accept the situation but unknown to them, rather than feel abhorrence toward Pottersville, George Bailey is in town and beginning to take to his new world. He has got romantically linked with Violet Bick and now doesn’t want to go back to Bedford Falls. Ricky realises that if he can persuade George to return, he can go with him to a place he always dreamed of living in and leave the hurt of his own past behind. He enters the Dime and Dance looking for George and Violet but gets wrongly arrested for lewd behaviour and Clarence deserts him. In Bert’s jailhouse he meets Henry Potter who has given George a job as his bailiff. Clarence appears and releases him only to see George and Violet in Ernie’s taxi on their way to evict Martini and his family. They steal Bert the Cop’s squad car and force Ernie to stop. As Ernie runs off to get Bert Ricky cannot persuade George to resist his darker side and he remains adamant he hates Bedford Falls and owes nothing to the town or its people. He decides to walk to Pottersfield but Vi refuses and heads back into town. Ricky goes with him and as they walk past the old Granville House, his house in Bedford Falls, Ricky begins to manipulate the conversation toward Bedford Falls and to the point in Clarence’s plan where George begs to live again. Bert and Ernie arrive but George escapes in a similar fashion to the film while Ricky eludes Bert the cop who just misses him with a bullet. When George returns he meets Ricky on the road where they first met. George tries to take Ricky back with him but he refuses realising only now that each man needs to create his own Bedford Falls and not desire someone else’s. George goes back and it snows again, signifying they are back in Bedford Falls. Suddenly, Clarence reappears. Ricky questions him about how he will get home when Bert the cop drives around the corner and runs over him. Ricky wakes up back in the snow besides his crashed car and walks home. Christmas Morning Ricky is asleep in front on the TV. Diane returns for some of her stuff but notices Ricky has finally finished a DIY job she’d been asking him to do for ages. Behind them the TV bursts into life with the opening titles of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’. Diane gets them both a drink and sits down with him to watch it.

POTTERSVILLE