At first, I'd considered writing this Review in rhyme, but I honestly doubted I'd be able to get across everything I had to say about this movie while putting such whimsical limits on my choice of words (plus, it's been done before). Released in the year 2000, Ron Howard's Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas is an hour and 45 minute long adaptation of the classic children's short story. It's also completely and utterly baffling on every conceivable level. I watched this movie for the first time when I was about five or six. Nearly two decades later and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it. As a kid, I loved how it was a wacky, "cooler" version of the classic 1966 television special; now that I'm older, I mostly loathe those aspects but can appreciate the oddball artistic vision the whole thing has going for it. It's a conflicting, surreal, weird mess of a film, and I'm honestly still kind of fascinated by it to this day.
The plot should be familiar to anyone who had an even slightly-literate childhood; there's a hairy, green creature known as the Grinch (Jim Carrey) who lives atop Mt. Crumpet, just north of the town of Whoville. It's a cheery little village full of cheery little people who just adore everything about Christmas; it just so happens, however, that the Grinch absolutely despises everything about them (and, by extension, Christmas itself). Fed up with the constant bombardment of noise and holiday cheer, the Grinch decides to disguise himself as Santa Claus, sneak down to Whoville in the middle of the night, and straight-up steal Christmas (or at least what he perceives Christmas to be). Having pilfered all of the presents and decorations in Whoville, the Grinch is stunned to find out that the Whos are able to still find worth in the holiday on Christmas morning. He learns that Christmas is moreso about friends, family, and togetherness than it is about material goods, returns everything he stole, and joins the Whos in their celebration. Like basically everything Dr. Seuss wrote, it's a nice, simple little story that delivers a surprisingly mature moral by way of imaginative, sing-songy prose. Naturally, this children's picture book (whose beloved prior adaptation clocks in at a whopping 26 minutes) was the perfect property to adapt into a $123 million blockbuster.
You might be wondering how the filmmakers stretched a book that can be read in a matter of minutes into a feature-length film; to be frank, they basically just accomplish this by adding an entire hour of shameless filler. The first half of the movie is devoted to the Grinch being invited to Whoville's annual Christmastime celebration by Cindy Lou-Who (Taylor Momsen, who is a good couple years older here than "two"). It seems for a moment as though he's actually embraced the Christmas spirit and made good with his festive neighbors, until he's provoked by the Mayor, played by Jeffery Tambor. The Grinch snaps and goes on a rampage, ruining the Whos' celebration in a manic, expensive-looking action sequence. Immediately afterwards, however, he returns to his home on the mountain and the Whos immediately repair all the damage he did. The Whos are hyped for Christmas and the Grinch hates them all; an hour into the movie and absolutely nothing has changed in regards to the story or character dynamics. Everything we've had to watch so far is inconsequential, the movie equivalent of busy-work until we get to the iconic "the Grinch steals Christmas" scene that everyone remembers so fondly from the book and cartoon. This isn't the only issue I found with this movie, but it's by far the most glaring and insulting.
Despite the first half of the movie being an unapologetic waste of my time, I can actually sort of respect what the filmmakers were going for here. The best way to make a short story into a long story is to expand upon its themes; unlike The Lorax (where the moral of the source material is completely thrown out the window in favor of another upbeat musical number), this is an adaptation that completely understands what the book was saying and tries its best to do that message justice in its own unique way. The movie takes the idea that "maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store" and runs with it. The Whos, with the exception of Cindy Lou, are portrayed as borderline unlikable. They're totally obsessed with the commercial aspects of the season, buying up gifts and assembling decorations while completely ignoring friends and family. Everything in Whoville looks as though it's made out of washed-out plastic, giving the impression that, while the set design is whimsical and festive, this is a town that lacks a soul.
The colors are drab and dreary, the picture is constantly cloudy, and every other shot is taken at a dutch angle (honestly, this movie and Battlefield: Earth are the first things that come to mind when I think of tilted cameras). While it's true that this off-putting aesthetic serves to enhance the film's message as a kind of overarching visual metaphor, that doesn't mean that it's at all appealing to look at. By making the Whos into a community of materialistic consumers, the Grinch is given some degree of moral high-ground, which is something that I feel just totally misses the point of the original story. We're not exactly supposed to relate to the Grinch, at least not entirely; the entire crux of his character is that he's clearly the bad guy. By giving us a clear villain in the form of the Mayor, we lose the impact brought on by the Grinch's change of heart in the end. As far as we're convinced, the Grinch is the endearing protagonist from the very beginning. As much as this movie devotes itself to the anti-consumerist message of the source material, there are many other areas where it completely misses the mark.
For instance, there's a number of blatant sexual innuendos that really feel out of place. Never have I ever wanted to see Christine Baranski channel Jessica Rabbit while expressing her carnal desire for Jim Carrey in a Grinch suit, and I'm fairly certain no one else wished for that either. I also never imagined I'd see a Dr. Seuss adaptation with the line "the sun is shining and the powder's bitchin'", but as I said, this is a very surreal experience. There's a flashback featuring the musical stylings of Smash Mouth, anything goes in this wacked-out and radical adventure. It feels as though it can't decide whether it wants to be a sardonic take on a classic kids' story for the older crowd or a live-action cartoon for the whole family. Instead it just sort of double-dips and the entire thing feels very inconsistent in terms of tone and execution.
The only thing I feel is at all consistent is Jim Carrey; rarely have I ever seen an actor so completely disappear into a role. It probably helps that he's covered in pounds of seamless, incredible makeup and prosthesis (care of special effects master, Rick Baker), but Carrey really goes the whole nine yards in this part. That's not to say that he's flawless; as good as the makeup is, I can't help but imagine pages upon pages of the script which simply read "the Grinch mugs at the camera". Carrey's enthusiasm is infectious, but his rapid-fire Sean Connery/James Cagney impression tends to border on grating and incomprehensible from time to time. Thankfully, the Grinch's dog, Max, is endlessly endearing (played by a rescued stray); this may come off as something of a tangent, but this is a remarkably cute mutt with a real knack for acting. It's almost enough to make me forget the scene where the Grinch tricks a sleeping Jeffery Tambor into kissing said dog on the butthole.
What else can be said about Ron Howard's Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas? It's a thoroughly weird movie. That's honestly the only way I can describe it. It's unpleasant to look at, the tone is all over the place, and it can't seem to decide exactly what it wants to be. Most of what it does doesn't work at all, but I also have to give Ron Howard and company an enormous amount of respect for going with such an out-of-the-box artistic vision with what could have easily been a very cut-and-dry children's adaptation. But then again, the original television special was as cut-and-dry as you can make it (only straying from the narrative of the book for the sake of the few musical numbers, all written by Dr. Seuss himself), and that adaptation is undoubtedly the more iconic take on this classic story. So would this have been a better movie, had the filmmakers dropped all pretense of aesthetic and just made a simple, by-the-numbers kid's flick? While I'm not sure anyone can answer that, I do know for a fact that the film we do have is in no way boring or uninteresting. There's a new, computer-animated adaptation in the works, to be released by Illumination Entertainment in November of 2018, so maybe that will hit closer to the mark (and hopefully be devoid of Minions). Regardless of how that turns out, I doubt anyone is liable to forget this particular version of the story, for better or for worse.
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