How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Once upon a time, Dr Seuss created a book in 1957 called ‘’How the Grinch Stole Christmas’’. Written completely in rhyme and being a story all about criticizing the commercialism of Christmas and people that take advantage of that element around the holiday, the book told the story of a grumpy old creature called the Grinch who learns the true meaning of Christmas after trying to steal it from the denizens living below him. With brilliantly simple writing and memorable words and visuals, the story was a hit and even eventually got itself an animated 1966 TV animated film directed by famous artist, Chuck Jones, and featuring the Frankenstein monster himself, Boris Karloff, as the voice of Grinch. With beautiful animation, wonderful music, and being a perfect re-telling of this classic story in a succent but nonetheless brilliantly direct manner, it transitioned from the page to the screen very nicely. With so much good will build up around this story and with the work of Dr. Seuss now being helmed as classic stories both from the book and their animated showcases, the major studios were extremely interested when Dr Seuss’ widow, Audrey Geisel, allowed the film rights of the story to be used, with it eventually being given to Universal who alongside, director Ron Howard, started making a full-length feature film version of the Grinch which would star rising comedic star, Jim Carrey in the lead. Once this film was released in the year 2000, the film became a monster success at the box office (earning $346 million worldwide against a $123 million budget and became the second highest grossing holiday film of all time right behind Home Alone) with many audiences still holding the film in high regard to this day as a classic. Too bad then the film is as sour and as rotten as the titular character’s heart. Set in the town of Whoville, a young Who named Cindy Lou Who (played by Taylor Momsen) wishes to understand the true meaning of Christmas as she feels the rest of the Whos are too focused on materialism. She feels that the only person she can get this from is The Grinch (played by Jim Carrey), a grumpy revenge-seeking creature who despises Christmas for what the Whos did to him and wishes to do away with it. After being humiliated by the Whos yet again after actually getting involved in one of their Christmas festivities, he plans to parade as Santa Clause and steal all the presents before they awake of Christmas Day. However, his encounter with Cindy Lou may have just been what it took to reveal to the Grinch exactly what Christmas is truly about. This movie has no interest in replicating the original or anything even remotely similar to Dr. Seuss’ work, it is rather a horribly misguided, disturbingly grungy and miserable picture that is no better than the green-haired monster it is attempting to understand. While popular with audiences, critics were not as easily fooled by this film’s pretense of goodwill, and while it is strange that most people were able to look past the film’s hideous visuals, irritating performances with annoying characters, a plot that veers so far off the original path that it remains lost the entire running time, and writing so juvenile and dirty that it has no right being associated with such a timeless icon, it’s at least worth dissecting it in order to understand.

In spite of what it might look like given how completely inaccurate this film is to its original source, Ron Howard was a fan of the original Chuck Jones animated short and even intentionally avoided making comparisons to said short as he felt that nothing could be topped from it. While that does show respect, this attitude limits what they can take from the original story as the animated short pretty much captured the essence of the story beat for beat with slightly filler included to reach an acceptable length, meaning that the only way to keep it different is to go off script. There is a way to turn this story into a film, but it would be tricky given the limited resources, and Ron Howard along with the screenwriters for this film, Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, were not the people who could pull it off. The outline of the story is present but is a tiny flicker in the picture next to more time being dedicated to the Whos, an even heavier focus on the message about commercialism, a backstory for the Grinch, and another villain in the mayor of Whoville, Augustus May (played by Jeffrey Tambor) who definitely wasn’t needed in the story. In attempting to be its own creation and trying to overstretch an idea that doesn’t really have the strength to withstand it, it destroys any connections to the book and creates something that results in a far more negative and cynical concoction. The message is far more obvious this time around and even made hilariously hypocritical by the film’s own incessant marketing about itself and needing the Whos to spell out the message arguably makes it feel a little less memorable, and anything that is from the original story now feels secondary and barely focused upon against the added content that more so ruins the story’s purpose rather than enhance it. Ron Howard’s direction doesn’t help the film in any way, and despite being a director that has branched out into other mediums and genre, he doesn’t feel like the right fit for what should be a creative and light-hearted children’s story, at least that should be the case despite the multiple innuendos present in this film. The film is so desperate to pander to a modern audience with a forced PG-13 rating, ”adult” humor that feels so out of place to the point of feeling insulting, and an overall feeling of watering down its structure for the sake of appealing to a larger market, that it just feels insulting, taking something that is so classic, so timeless and charming, and morphing it into an edgy, dirty romp with little Christmas soul.

If there’s anything that can be said about the choice to cast Jim Carrey as the Grinch, it’s that this would not have been an easy role to play for anyone. He not only had to deliver something distinct enough away from Boris Karloff to not feel like a rip off, but he is also saddled with a pathetic script, a terrible story, and is covered in so much painful looking make-up for the film’s entire length, you wouldn’t blame Carrey for losing his focus from time to time. When looking at his performance in a bubble, there is a passionate uniqueness behind his delivery that can be admirable given the circumstances, as the voice is different and could work with good dialogue, Carrey as an actor is flexible and expressive enough to work around all the make-up, and at least providing an eccentric grumpiness for the character that, while not like the book, is not a bad idea for this delivery. But when all is said and done, Carrey’s goodwill is mostly drowned out by how annoying he is in this picture, and whether its due to his own acting choices or the script and direction is up in the air, but it leaves this performance feeling like it is desperate for attention and carries the marks of all of Carrey’s most obnoxious portrayals. What’s strange about the film is that the Whos are actually far more unlikeable than the Grinch, with their hideous looking designs due to the bizarre make-up, their selfish, materialistic and hypocritical behaviors making them extremely unsympathetic, and the bland archetypes in which they are written into, keeping them as a constant unpleasant factor for this story. Cindy Lou is okay to be around thanks to a bland but otherwise harmless portrayal by Taylor Momsen and not featuring the hideous make-up, but everybody else whether it be Jeffrey Tambor, Christine Baranski as the Grinch’s love interest (which is a ridiculous idea and is only featured in order to be disturbingly sexualised) or Bill Irwin as Cindy Lou’s father, none of them are worth the time of day.

For a movie that looks soaked in expensive visuals effects, elaborate set design and extreme make-up work, it’s tragic that this is easily one of the ugliest movies released in the early 2000s (which is baffling considering its a Christmas film). Instead of being bright, colorful and brimming with the festive spirt, this production is smoky and very muted in the color palette, filmed with contorted angles with an overly enhanced lens by Don Peterman, that makes things feel strange and distorted for no reason, editing by Dan Hanley and Mike Hill at such a rapid speed that it becomes nauseating after a while, and set design by Michael Corenblith and Meredith Boswell that in a different place and personality, might’ve been strong, but otherwise is buried underneath the film’s previously listed issues. One of the few things about the production that is certainly strong is the make-up effects, particularly on the Grinch. While the Whos don’t translate well to film with their lack of a lower lip making their physical design look like deformed sock puppets, everything about how the Grinch expresses, moves and even looks and feels, is very well handled and shows great talent from the prosthetic creator, Rick Baker, make-up artist, Kazu Hiro and hairdresser, Gail Ryan (with both Baker and Ryan winning the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling). Tragically, the film could’ve looked nice with a different delivery, as on their own, they are impressive from a technical perspective, and during parts of the ending, the colors do get brighter and the musical score by James Horner does providing swoon light-heartedness that might’ve been pleasant if not attached to such a rotten egg.

For a film that seems so bitter and mean–spirited to be held as such a treasured film for many is certainly bizarre, but strangely, it doesn’t feel like it comes from any place of hate. There might not be a more complicated answer than ”they grew up with it and hold a fondness for it all these years later” and while that is a little small-minded, you can’t fault someone for feeling that way. While that is all well and good, it doesn’t erase the fact that this is a terrible that misses the mark of its original story and actively insults it. The story is ruined, the characters are horrible, the visuals are hideous, and the screenplay is pathetic. While it’s not as putrid and soul-crushing as The Cat in the Hat as at least this film does try and be about something even if it is poorly delivered, it’s hard to see this as anything more than a lump coal shoved into your Christmas stocking.