The Grinch
**
Rated on a 4-star
scale
Screening venue: Warner Village (Birkenhead Conway Park)
Released in the UK by UIP on December 1, 2000; certificate PG; 105 minutes;
country of origin USA; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Ron Howard; produced by Brian
Grazer, Ron Howard.
Written by Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman; based on the book
"How the Grinch Stole Christmas" by Dr. Seuss.
Photographed by Donald Peterman; edited by Dan Hanley, Mike
Hill.
CAST.....
Jim Carrey..... The Grinch
Taylor Momsen..... Cindy Lou Who
Jeffrey Tambor..... Mayor May Who
Christine Bora..... Martha May Whovier
Bill Irwin..... Lou Lou Who
Josh Ryan Evans..... Young Grinch
Anthony Hopkins..... Narrator
"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice-cold
in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: 'How could it be so?'
'It came without ribbons! It came without tags!'
'It came without packages, boxes or bags!'
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the grinch thought of something he hadn't before!"
Just a few little lines by the great Dr. Seuss
make me giggle and wriggle inside. I did not expect Ron Howard's "The
Grinch" to capture his magic or even aura -- this is, after all,
a film rather than an extended poem, and Seuss is a damn high standard in
any medium. What I did expect was a reasonably well-made movie -- Howard's
filmography includes "Parenthood", that truthful and warm comedy about suburban
life, and "Apollo 13", the awesome true story of the doomed lunar mission.
Now he gives us one of the ugliest movies ever perpetrated on a mass
audience.
For those who don't know the story, it's about
a town full of merry but materialistic folk known as the Whos, who live in
a town called Whoville, where Christmas gets everyone psyched -- everyone
except for a girl named Cindy Lou Who, who's having doubts about the meaning
of the affair, and a grouchy green creature called Grinch who was banished
as a child and now has plans to ruin the holiday season.
Also for those who don't know the story: read
the book.
Taylor Momsen, the little girl who plays Cindy,
has a sweet face, a fragile voice, and sincere, intelligent eyes; she's one
of those rare cute kids in the movies who don't make the audience want to
hurl. There's even a dog in this picture who can act -- one of the incredulous
looks he gives the Grinch ranks among the funniest things I've seen all year.
Jim Carrey, in the starring role, is often hilarious; he spins and shouts
with his usual amphetamine energy, creating a character of laugh-out-loud
malevolence, in antics that include shaving the mayor's head into an inverted
mohawk and using his dog as a packhorse. My favourite moment: he wants to
wreak havoc at the Whoville post office and chooses to put Joe Sixpack's
worst nightmare in every mailbox… jury duty!
But the movie is more accurately represented by
the scene in which the Grinch -- a hairy green creature who wanders round
naked with his belly hanging out -- wipes an apple in his armits, munches
it like a garbage disposal unit, then tosses it over his head into the valley
of scum he calls home. This is such an eyesore of a movie! It is photographed
in misty, muddy, muted tones, and bizarre, disorientating tilt shots. And
the human characters, for no clear reason, all have noses that resemble upturned
pig snouts.
Anthony Hopkins is one of the few screen actors
who I would have thought could never be boring, but his monotone delivery
of the narration in "The Grinch" proves that, well, you never stop learning.
And the tacked-on anti-materialistic message of the last act might have very
earnest music cues behind it, but come on, this film has cost an obscene
amount of money and will no doubt rake it back in with a profit, and I think
we all know that within five minutes of leaving the cinema, families will
be forgetting about the moralising they've just seen in favour of bitching
about the chore of Christmas shopping.
I gotta say it again -- buy the
book.
COPYRIGHT© 2000 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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