Jayden, thanks for your observations. That last point really resonates with me: how George finds hope through his brush with despair. "I wish I'd never been born" is perhaps the ultimate expression of despair, nihilism to an extreme. And yet, it is through the experience of what Bedford Falls would be like (Pottersville) and specifically the people in George's life if he hadn't been born that leads George to hope.

It's a "dark" story, unusual for movies associated with Christmas, but the Jesus story is also a "dark" one.