The cinematic equivilent to a loud and aggressive shirt at a funeral. ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ has one thing and one thing alone going for it. and that’s Jim Carrey in arguably some of the best practical effects makeup that the 00’s ever produced. Everything else about this incarnation of the classic Dr. Seuss story made me feel physically and mentally unwell. There are a few reasons for that, and we’ll start with the basics.

‘How the Grinch stole christmas!’ was published in 1957 and clocks in at 67 pages long. Its a picture book aimed at teaching children about the importance of humanism and socialist practices. Its basically an alagory for the much needed life lesson that, as a society, humanity depends on the kindness, warmth and love within the hearts of every man, woman, NB and child to ensure we thrive as a species and that noone will ever feel alone, isolated or ‘without’.

In the book, the grinch is an isolated individual who believes that the ‘Whos’ are all talk, that REALLY they SAY that they’re all about ‘the spirit of christmas’ and helping each other and mans humanity to man. But if they DIDNT have their instruments, or their feasts or their decorations, they’d revert to Grouchy, angry gremlins who were no better than The Grinch. Hence why he formulates the plan to steal All the christmas fodder from Whoville to prove a point, and hence why…when the Who’s DONT react the way the Grinch expects, and that…without even hesitating, they all leave their houses to sing and dance together as a community on christmas morning. The Grinch realises that all we have is love, warmth and a sense of community and he changes and joins them.

Its a simple, but very effective message that was pretty perfectly realised in the 1966 adaptaiton of the book. it wasnt perfect. But it was pretty close.

The 2000 adaptation though? seemingly almost ENTIRELY misses the point of the book, and on pretty much every level either disturbed, disgusted or violently tried to put me off.

so…GONE is basically all of the ‘mans humanity to man’ stuff…The Who’s in this adaptation are consumerist pigdogs who are ONLY interested in buying and sending presents and trying to ‘get one up on the neighbours.’ Originally good, decent folk who had gifts simply because they could afford it. THESE Who’s are narcessistic, egotistical aggressive, shouty, they bully people. and are dismissive of the stuff they own…but not in a ‘it doesnt matter, we have each other’ kind of way…In a ‘EH, I can afford 20 christmas trees, i’ll just grab another one’ kind of way.

Its basically a fundamental problem, that this version of the story has a thick meaty slab of capitalism running right through the middle of it…in a story that inherently rails AGAINST capitalism as a means of humanity.

for some reason, they decided to rework the original story, centering the film around the relationship between the Who’s and the Grinch and more specifically a newly written relationship between Cindy Lou-Who and the Grinch where, after a chance encounter at the post office, Cindy Lou becomes OBSESSED with trying to bring the Grinch into HER version of christmas…Which I do rather feel misses the point, because the point of ‘The Grinch’ isnt to assimilate him into christmas, its to make HIM understand that Christmas is people, and people have unending resevoirs of love and compassion.

They decide equally to give the Grinch a full backstory, explaining how he was adopted by christmas fuelled ‘biddys’ as a baby, and how he had a love called Martha who was ‘snatched away’ by a bully who abused the grinch until he left Whoville. Which…I dont really think we needed that honestly…

They add a strange subplot about a love triangle with the Grinch, Martha and the bully (who’s now the mayor of Whoville)…They have subplot where Cindy Lou invites the Grinch down to whoville for a christmas party, only for it to turn out to be organized just to bully the Grinch some more.

Not to mince my words here, but the Who’s in this film…are arseholes. They prove the Grinch right on pretty much every turn in this film, and they get an undeserved ending when the Grinch brings all the gifts back.

The Grinch himself here isnt exactly a great representation of the character either. in the books, he’s a wicked but animated character who’s cunning first and foremost, and willing to have amuse himself with a bad joke if the mood takes him, but he’s predominantly on a mission to prove his point. The Grinch here…is basically Jim Carreys interpretation of the Grinch…which here means we’re subjected to prolongued periods of flouncing, gurning, pop culture references, random noises and improv. Which is great…if your just wanting to see Jim Carrey do his thing…but not so great if you want a reasonable live action adaptation of a much loved childrens book/animation.

Throughout the whole film, I kind of realised that, what probably would have worked better, would have been to put Carrey in the makeup and jsut have him do a standup set in the full grinch makeup for a couple hours, film it, and then sell it as a live show, because. I really liked his performance, he didnt get the character particularly well…But I liked Jim Carrey, and I’d have paid good money to see him just do an hour and a halfs set while he pretends to be the Grinch, without the narrative of the film dragging him down.

Its fundamental issues that plague this film. the tones all over the place, the pacings wonkey and unappealing, the ending isnt satisfactory because (as mentioned) I dont feel it was earned. Non of the characters are particularly likeable, and in some cases are just downright grating. the act structuring is off the dialogues awkward and weird, with only Carreys stuff and the improv lines being anything above ‘tolerable.

The directions just about technically sound, but this has got to be the UGLIEST creative vision i’ve seen put to screen, its like those horrifying meme images that float around online where they take a cartoon character like Homer Simpson and show what he’d look like ‘if he was a real person’ all the houses, the street sets, EVERYTHING looks garish, ugly and warped in the worst way possible, the Who designs, sometimes work, and sometimes look like nightmare fuel. The Grinch is probably the only solid costume in the whole thing and…with over 2 hours of makeup application behind it. its not surprising it looks amazing.

Visually, this thing kept reminding me of ‘Batman Forever’ which is NOT where you want the audiences mind to go to when your looking for creative inspiration. Howards direction of the cast is reasonable, but the scripts so unlikeable its kind of hard to really make ANYONE feel like someone I could warm to.

The cine is garish, hazy and awkward. compositions are messy, for some reason they made the sets and characters with a clear idea of using strong and harsh vivid colours, complimented with strong block coloured lighting…but then when it came to grade it in post, they muted it all. Which is horrifying because theres CLEARLY so much that could have been done with the grade to make it more interesting…But no..they just slapped a grey/brown filter over the top of the colours and cranked it up. Not helped either they seem to have either applied some kind of ‘hazy’ filter in post or done the old vasaline trick on the lens because everything has this slight smeared ‘woozy’ look to it, I described it to my viewing buddy as it feeling like you’ve just woken up from a deep ambien fuelled dream to find yourself on the floor of a casino in vegas on a bachalor party full of people you dont like…thats also on fire.

The edits a mess as well, its inconsistent, they cut WAY too much to seemingly pointless shots, the B-roll is WAY too overused. Its just…ugly. For lack of a better word.

throw in some of the worst songs i’ve heard in a christmas movie (and thats saying something) and you have one of the most garish, unappealing loud, screechy vomits from hollywood this side of the century.

Oh! yeh! thats another problem with this film, its unrelenting. This film made me think about ‘what makes a good christmas film?’ and I think I’ve cracked it. The best christmas films utilise a simple (relatable) idea, maybe have a few kind of crazy moments throughout to help keep things interesting, but focus on a small, but likable cast with a strong message relevent to the season. things like ‘Elf’, ‘National Lampoons Christmas vacation’ and ‘Home Alone’ all have big crazy moments dotted throughout, but they never stray from a core message, likeable characters and simple scenarios.

The reason they do that, is because christmas (for many) is a nightmare of stress, having to remember a million things and trying to balance a budget. You dont want something aggressively in your face, you dont want something complex or overly involved because the film needs to be as relevent to the mom/dad whos got christmas presents to wrap, a turkey to baste and a christmas play to get to…as it is to the ‘nogged up’ uncle or aunty who’s full of fruit cake and can barely remember their own name. its got to be simple, because people at that time of year can only just about handle ‘simple’…you can HIDE deeper meanings and easter eggs in there. but its my belief that you cant overtly make a complex, widely loved chrsitmas movie .

This films the exact opposite of the above. a multi threaded colourful vomit of a picture that screams, bangs and screeches its way through nearly TWO HOURS of runtime. goes nowhere really, says…NOTHING…really. its not good in my opinion…its not ‘fun’ in my opinion. and I likely wont be watching this one again.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sh4kz_zhyo

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/how-the-grinch-stole-christmas-2000/