For Your (Re)Consideration: How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Tilted and Askew, Forever Shines Anew

To put it mildly, How The Grinch Stole Christmas didn’t receive a warm critical response when it was first released in 2000. Its 49% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score today underscores just how derided the film was by many critics. Roger Ebert called it a “dark, eerie, weird” film about a “sour creature.” Stephanie Zacharek said it was “numbingly un-hip, nonsensical” and “just plain dull.” Manohla Dargis called it “shrill,” “overstuffed,” and “spiritless.” These are Pulitzer Prize winners! Surely, they must be correct! I guess this film will get swallowed up and never be seen again.

Far be it for this millennial to disagree with their award-winning opinions, but for moviegoers of my and subsequent generations, it’s possible these titans missed the forest through the trees (or more precisely, the Pontoos Mountains over Mount Crumpit). In the twenty-five years since Ron Howard’s film was released, the narrative that’s formed is that its shelf life developed despite that dominant initial reception. For those who love it, it feels like the opposite is true: Like its main character, How The Grinch Stole Christmas is beloved because of its oddities. More than simply an adaptation of a beloved children’s book, Howard’s take feels like a whimsical, Frankensteinian combination of Dr. Seuss, Tim Burton, John Waters and Frank Tashlin.

To be fair to my forebears, that isn’t something that should work. And maybe it doesn’t, really. But it’s hard to argue with the film’s staying power, starting with its nationwide 25th anniversary re-release in theaters on Dec. 11th. Derided or lauded, The Grinch was a massive success upon its initial opening, earning $347 million at the box office against its $123 million budget. Yet what’s truly appreciated in the intervening years Jim Carrey’s turn in the title role; watching him today, he gives what feels like one of the greatest on-screen comic performances of all time.

Jim Carrey’s Performance and Visionary Art Direction Has Cemented Ron Howard’s Adaptation in the Annals of All-Time Christmas Favorites

Such a curious and unnatural adaptation isn’t that surprising given its screenwriters Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, the duo behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. In Dr. Seuss’s original short story, there’s no mention of unrequited love between the Grinch and Martha May Whovier (Christine Baranski), nor any sort of commentary on capitalism and Christmastime over-consumption. There is no rivalry with Mayor August Maywho (Jeffrey Tambor), nor a mention of Clarnella or Rose (Mindy Sterling and Rachel Winfree, respectively), Grinch’s barely-coded lesbian adoptive mothers. The only other character besides the Grinch in the book is Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsen), who on the page is two years old and the size of a mouse.

Ron Howard’s maximalist-and-then-some film includes all that and more. Though it’s based on a children’s book, on screen it’s thoroughly packed with adult themes and subject matter (including sexual innuendo), though mostly of the sort that goes over kids’ heads. Clarnella and Rose discover the baby Grinch (Josh Ryan Evans) at what is clearly a key party. The mayor’s assistant, Whobis (Ron’s brother Clint Howard), barely restrains a thirsty love for his boss. Martha May’s childhood crush on the Grinch blossoms into heaving, adult lust as she fawns over “those muscles.” In one scene, the Grinch flies straight into Martha May’s cleavage. Dr. Seuss could never.

Barry E. Jackson, Dan Webster and Lauren E. Polizzi’s taffylike vision of Whoville’s snowy, small-town aesthetic regularly serves as inspiration in real-life holiday decor.

Perhaps your taste for sexually-veiled humor within a family film is limited (who could blame you), but then the film is still packed to the gills with visually astounding, inventive and over the years influential art direction and production design. Barry E. Jackson, Dan Webster and Lauren E. Polizzi’s taffylike vision of Whoville’s snowy, small-town aesthetic regularly serves as inspiration in real-life holiday decor. Snow looks like powdered sugar, M.C. Escher-like staircases ascend to nowhere, unevenly built bookshelves and mailboxes teeter, tomato-red and avocado-green splashes across everything, and the Grinch’s Rube Goldberg machine-packed lair hides a different, mischievous surprise around every corner. That world of Ron Howard’s Grinch is contained within a single snowflake (another non-Seuss invention) feels like a figment of a child’s imagination, running wild.

It’s because of those big swings that How The Grinch Stole Christmas remains so divisive: are its character designs endearing, or simply creepy? With cosmetic effects provided by the legendary Rick Baker, who previously worked on Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Men in Black, Maleficent, Videodrome, An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, and more, the appearances of everyone from The Grinch to Martha May to Cindy Lou’s mother Betty Lou (Molly Shannon) all maintain an uneasy balance between cuddly and strange. What’s more remarkable is how expressive Baker enabled the actors to be beneath it — so much, in fact, that he was awarded the Best Makeup Oscar for his efforts (the film was also nominated for Art Direction and Costume Design).

In a time of ubiquitous CGI, its thoroughly tactile world still feels particularly refreshing, even believable. Even more than because of its design, that’s due in large part to its stream of unforgettable performances. Many viewers today may not know that Bill Irwin, who plays Cindy Lou’s father, Lou Lou Who, with contortionist bravado, is a legendary clown and choreographer (do yourself a favor and find clips of his Tony-nominated Largely New York, online). Shannon and Baranski’s not-so-friendly neighborly rivalry for the best decorated home is a hilarious take on suburban competitiveness — one exaggerated enough that Betty Lou eventually steals a stoplight to win (causing an off-screen car accident, no less).

Admittedly less enjoyable is Howard and cinematographer Donald Peterman’s abuse of Dutch angles to capture the action, making the film feel more like it’s set on the deck of a pirate ship instead of a snowy hilltop. It reeks of distrust in the audience and undercuts the work of his own spectacularly gifted design team, when all one needs is to look at the design of Whoville and its inhabitants to see that things are a bit askew.

Thank goodness, there’s Jim Carrey, who was rightfully nominated for Best Actor at the Golden Globes. Donning massive, untamed and hairy green costuming and makeup — a two and a half hour daily process he once compared to being “buried alive” and for which Howard reportedly hired a consultant to help him deal with handling torture — Carrey acts like a Grinch possessed. He trudges through each space leading with his pregnant paunch, his back curved as if in a full-body scowl of contempt of everything, including himself. The character is so affecting because Carrey’s portrayal is, despite all of that outward show, deeply humanistic; one of the Grinch’s sneakily sadder moments is when he takes a sedative and bashes his head with a hammer to deal with “pesky memories.”

As Cindy Lou knows, the Grinch is deeply misunderstood, and, quite like Elphaba in Wicked, is a green-skinned scapegoat of manufactured evil to bolster an openly corrupt politician’s consolidation of power. That’s not directly what the film is about, but the overlap is there. The Mayor announces in one scene that he has bought a car for Martha May with the support of taxpayer money, and quotes from The Book of Who in the same manner a dishonest politician uses Biblical teachings as paper over dubious policy.

As the Grinch, Carrey is excessively cruel and debauched, but only insofar as it makes him, and us, laugh. There is perhaps no sillier moment in the film than when the Grinch is desperately trying to come up with an excuse to miss the 1,000th Whobilation by quoting his own calendar for the day:

“4:00: Wallow in self-pity

4:30: Stare into the abyss

5:00: Solve world hunger (tell no one)

5:30: Jazzercise

6:30: Dinner with me (I can’t cancel that again!)

7:00: Wrestle with my self-loathing

… I’m booked!”

Carrey’s Grinch has impossibly crooked teeth teeming with termites, he eats refuse like broken glass and ceramic plates, and most significantly, he steals Christmas. But he also argues with his own echo (who wins by calling him an idiot), appears to be the only member of his race (or species), was mocked out of his school during childhood by his own teacher, and lives in Whoville’s literal dumpster. Carrey encompasses all of those complexities in a nimble and shockingly nuanced performance that ultimately falls somewhere between Chewbacca, Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp, Sean Connery’s James Bond and Boris Karloff.

25 years later, some may still not like Ron Howard’s noisy, oversized take on Seuss’ source material. But like a lovable green oaf once said, “one man’s toxic sludge is another man’s potpourri… I think it’s a soup?” For better or worse, How The Grinch Stole Christmas has become a multi-generational touchstone; like its would-be protagonist, its challenging exterior undeniably conceals something kinda sweet, whether or not it causes every viewer’s heart to grow three sizes after watching it.