How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) Universal/Fantasy-Comedy RT: 104 minutes Rated PG (some crude humor, slapstick violence) Director: Ron Howard Screenplay: Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman Music: James Horner Cinematography: Donald Peterman Release date: November 17, 2000 (US) Cast: Jim Carrey, Taylor Momsen, Jeffrey Tambor, Christine Baranski, Bill Irwin, Molly Shannon, Clint Howard, Josh Ryan Evans, Mindy Sterling, Rose Winfree, Rance Howard, Anthony Hopkins (narrator). Box Office: $260.4M (US)/$363.5M (World)
Rating: *
Ron Howard’s live-action, feature-length version of the beloved Dr. Seuss book How the Grinch Stole Christmas is tantamount to a stocking filled with toxic green sludge. I have fond memories of watching the original animated special every year on TV. It ran just 26 minutes and told the story beautifully and simply. It still fills me with joy after all these years. This newer one, on the other hand, makes me nauseous. It’s a crass, unattractive and cheerless excuse for a Christmas movie, especially for one aimed at kids. The mere act of looking at it is unpleasant which is the worst thing that can possibly be said of a Christmas movie. It’s not even a movie, it’s a nightmare!
There’s plenty wrong with How the Grinch Stole Christmas starting with the title character himself. This is NOT the Grinch I grew up with. For purely financial reasons, he’s played by Jim Carrey in one of his typical manic performances. HA, that’s being generous! It doesn’t even qualify as a performance. It’s just Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey in a Grinch costume. The makers should have just called it The Jim Carrey Show for all the mugging and clowning around he does throughout the entire course of this cinematic lump of coal. It’s exhausting and not in a good way.
Everybody knows the basic plot of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It goes as follows: the Who-hating Grinch decides to ruin Christmas for all the happy citizens of Whoville by stealing all their presents, decorations and food. He has a change of heart after seeing his criminal actions didn’t dampen their Christmas spirit one little bit. He returns everything and finds happiness. It’s beautiful in its simplicity, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s not enough material for a feature-length movie. Some expansion is obviously required. This is where How the Grinch Stole Christmas starts to lose its magic.
For starters, the writers try to add gravitas to the Grinch by explaining why he hates Christmas so much. It has to do with an unhappy childhood marked by constant teasing, taunting and bullying by his classmates due to his unusual appearance. What eight-year-old isn’t going to get picked on for being green and hairy? It all comes to a head at the class Christmas party when everybody laughs at the gift he made for the prettiest girl in school, Martha May Whovier. He flips out, trashes the place and retreats to a dank cave on top of a high mountain. From that day on, he lives as a cynical, misanthropic recluse in a miserable, garbage-filled lair where he spends most of his time wallowing in anger, resentment and self-pity. It’s an “old wounds never heal” scenario.
In addition to the Grinch backstory, Howard and his writers expand on little Cindy Lou Who’s (Momsen, Gossip Girl) role in this tacky tale. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but she sounds like a Peanuts character when she questions the true meaning of Christmas. It can’t be just about presents, lights and material things, can it? She’s also curious about the Grinch. She sincerely believes he’s warm and sweet underneath his cold and sour façade. She sets out to prove it to the frightened population of Whoville by nominating him for “Holiday Cheermeister” at the annual Christmas “Whobilation”, a kind gesture that backfires after a reminder of his childhood pain. It’s the final straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back. This is when he starts to hatch his evil plan to steal Christmas. Other characters, like adult Martha May (Baranski, The Ref) and Mayor MayWho (Tambor, Arrested Development), have been added to flesh out the story further.
Topping things off is a message about the commercialization of Christmas and the copious consumerism that takes place that time of year. None of this was an issue in the book or animated short. It’s a BIG issue in this retooled version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We get scenes of Whos in crowded stores spending loads of money on gifts for loved ones. We see them in the town post office pushing, shoving and shouting as they try to get their packages sent out in time. We see Cindy Lou’s mother Betty Lou (Shannon, The Santa Clause 2) going all out to win a holiday light contest. All the while, the little girl looks on in bewilderment and asks questions that would confound most adults. It leads up to a scene in which she expresses her confused feelings in song, a saccharine number called “Christmas, Why Can’t I Find You?” It’s the movie’s apex of annoyance.
When the mere act of looking at a movie is intolerable, it’s obvious something went wrong on the creative end. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of the ugliest movies I’ve ever seen. This is no exaggeration. The Grinch looks like a green wolfman. The Whos are freaking creepy. The average Who looks like a rat-pig hybrid with big front teeth and a swine-like snout. Whoville isn’t a jolly-looking place either. It’s been transformed into a dark-ish and menacing place decked out in grungy shades of red and green. It looks more like something conceived by Lovecraft than Seuss.
What really grinds my gears about this reworking of How the Grinch Stole Christmas is the unnecessary inclusion of inappropriate humor and crude jokes. Was it really necessary to make Martha May a Who slut with her revealing outfits and provocative behavior? Same goes for the scene of the Grinch telling the town populace to kiss his behind. I don’t mean to come off as puritanical in my objection to this material. I have no problem with this type of humor. I object on the grounds that it sullies the purity and innocence of the original source. It’s not wanted or needed here.
As I’ve already said, Carrey is the WRONG choice for the role of the Grinch. His manic energy doesn’t serve him well here. He leaps, jumps, bounds and tumbles all over the place. He makes funny faces and spouts one-liners. It doesn’t work at all. He’s too jokey. I much prefer the quiet malevolence of Boris Karloff, the old school horror star who voiced the Grinch in the original. The problem with Carrey’s depiction lies in how the character is written. Are we really expected to feel sympathy for a sour, ugly creature who lives in filth, scares kids and is mean to his own dog? It’s supposed to be funny, but I don’t expect small children to know or understand that. They’re more apt to be scared out of their wits by this Grinch. That being said, I must confess to being fond of the Grinch’s outgoing answering machine message: “If you utter so much as one syllable, I’LL HUNT YOU DOWN AND GUT YOU LIKE A FISH!!!!” LOL! Spoken like a true grouch.
The makers also drop the ball with a reworked version of signature song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” by Carrey and rapper Busta Rhymes. It’s just terrible. I don’t know who they should have gotten to play the Grinch, but it shouldn’t have been Jim Carrey. He’s just too Jim Carrey. HOWEVER, they did well in choosing Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs) to take over narrating duties. He has a great voice. He’s one of two not-terrible things in How the Grinch Stole Christmas; the other is the Grinch’s faithful dog Max who gives the movie’s best performance.
The humor in How the Grinch Stole Christmas feels forced most of the time, yet I can’t think of a single moment when any of it feels natural. This movie is a train wreck, plain and simple. It’s the first time a Dr. Seuss property was made into a live-action feature film and judging by the finished product, the widow Seuss would be completely justified if she vetoed any further attempts to capture her late husband’s work on film. Howard and his team really made a mess of it. It’s too bad, he really is a gifted filmmaker. Look at Splash, Cocoon, Willow and A Beautiful Mind.
Rarely have I seen anything as misconceived as this version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Not only does it appear to condone the very attitudes it purports to condemn (i.e. commercialism, consumerism), the feel-good ending comes off as perfunctory and insincere due to the events that preceded it. At 102 minutes, it definitely overstays its dubious welcome. PLUS, it’s busy to the point of tedium. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Even then, the makers don’t afford us a break. The first song heard over the closing credits is a sappy tune (“Where Are You, Christmas?”) by country singer Faith Hill. Quick, pass the insulin!
Two things come to mind right away in regards to How the Grinch Stole Christmas: (1) if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it and (2) sometimes less is more. Although I know it was inevitable that some great mind in Hollywood would decide to turn How the Grinch Stole Christmas into a movie, it doesn’t mean it was a good idea. In this case, it’s a shameless cash-grab that sees the source material only in terms of box office dollars. Its joy is the manufactured kind you’d find in a mall Christmas village with its sullen teenage elves working for minimum wage and cranky Santa counting the minutes until quitting time. It is the very definition of inferior product. It is the true nightmare before, during and after Christmas. I’ve had New Year’s Day hangovers that are more entertaining and twice as rewarding. Thanks for nothing, Ronny.
