If I were to ask you which films you think are excellent adaptations of their source material, you might say Little Women (1994 or 2019). You might say Joe Wright’s 2005 Pride and Prejudice. You might say any of the films nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. And you’d be right that many of them are excellent. But I would personally argue that How The Grinch Stole Christmas, a film celebrating its 20th birthday this month, blows them all out of the water.
How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the live-action adaptation of the Doctor Seuss picture book of the same name, is a much maligned and misunderstood masterpiece. The only award that the script was ever nominated for was Worst Screenplay at the Razzies, and I am dismayed to see that the film is hovering at around 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. Before we even get into the ins and outs of the story itself, I think that rating is ridiculously low for a film that boasts an iconic Jim Carrey performance, imaginative world-building and a laugh out loud script – but that is another article.
What I am here to argue is that How The Grinch Stole Christmas is one of the best literary adaptations ever committed to the screen, and let me tell you now – I have the receipts for this bold claim.
The book How The Grinch Stole Christmas is a slim picture book with nearly black and white illustrations, telling the simple tale of the Grinch – a grumpy, Christmas hating guy – who hates his Whoville neighbours and the festive season so much that he decides to steal all of their food and presents in an effort to cancel Christmas. He achieves this by dressing as Santy Claus and loading everything into a sleigh which he intends to push off a mountain. He is won over at the last minute by the Whos of Whoville singing their usual Christmas songs, unconcerned by the lack of presents. He realises Christmas is about more than the ‘stuff’ and gets over his hatred of the season.
It is a good story, and standard Doctor Seuss fare. It is also very short. The Grinch is the only character save for a brief cameo from Cindy-Lou Who. The Grinch, being a typical picture book villain, is also lacking in motivation. The narrator doesn’t know why the Grinch hates Christmas so much – he says maybe his shoes are too tight, or perhaps his heart is two sizes too small. They aren’t particularly convincing reasons.
So then we come to the film, which takes the story of the Grinch and hits every beat – the grumpy, anti-Christmas ghoul learns the true meaning of the season. Firstly though, we get some much-needed scene setting. Almost immediately, the film composites that the Grinch is not the villain we think he is. The opening scene of Who teens scared away from the mountain by some simple trickery is enough to show us that what the Whos think of the Grinch and what we think of him should be very different. He isn’t such a bad guy; he’s kind of gross and lacking in basic social skills, but he also just wants to be left alone. Already he is a different Grinch to the one we think we know.
We also learn that he had quite a sad backstory; an outcast from birth, he was nevertheless raised by two loving mums, and it was only ferocious bullying and a thwarted crush that left him so bitter and lonely, hiding on his mountain. Is it any wonder he doesn’t like Christmas when his last experience of it was making a beautiful gift for a girl who seemingly didn’t like him back? Or that said gift was mocked by his peers, when he’d spent so long crafting it? Who wouldn’t be a little bit resentful?
With all this crucial expanding of the Grinch’s backstory, coupled with a disastrous attempt by Cindy Lou Who (a pure of heart angel) to get him down and socialising with the townsfolk, it is easier to understand his motivations when he decides to exact revenge on the town and steal Christmas from them. Why should they have all the fun when all Christmas has ever done is cause him grief?
Of course, the backstory and world building that make his motivations stronger also help to clear up why he has such a change of heart at the end. Cindy Lou Who has broken through his crusty exterior and found his heart underneath. When he hears the Whos singing and comes to his realisation that Christmas is about being together, we aren’t so surprised. She has already taught him that lesson, by trying to get him involved, and he just needed to realise it.
The best adaptations of books into films are ones that take the material and make reasoned choices about how best to tell the story on the screen. How The Grinch Stole Christmas didn’t need any cuts, and the screenwriters (Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman) didn’t change a note of the core beloved tale, using much of the original story for narrator Anthony Hopkins’ voiceovers. I’d argue that everything they added was perfectly necessary to make the Grinch’s story a more fulfilling one for the character and his audience. Every scene with Carrey’s Grinch is a delight; hilarious, anarchic, and completely designed to make us love him a little bit more. Every scene in Whoville is a technicolour wonder, and the perspective of Cindy Lou Who is spot on as she becomes more dismayed by the blatant disregard of her fellow Whos for the meaning of Christmas.
But most importantly of course, through all the shenanigans and humour that was added, they didn’t change the message of the book at all, but only reinforced it and made it clearer for younger viewers – that Christmas is not about things, but rather the people around you and the time you spend together.
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