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At a time when award-winning movies, and even the fantasies of the week devoted to the franchise with FX, often take half an hour too much for their good, it's worth recalling some examples of pop culture stories that were, at their way, miracles of brevity. The original "Frankenstein" of 1931 has a rather complex scenario (Dr. Frankenstein is getting ready to work, he gives life to the creature of Boris Karloff, the creature learning to walk, the creature coming out into the world, the day of the wedding, the pitchfork mob), yet everything happens in just 71 minutes.
And speaking of creatures that destroy things by loneliness, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," the perennial of the Dr. Seuss series of 1966, narrated by none other than Boris Karloff, also unrolls a relatively heavy thread. The Grinch, in his cheeky frowning enthusiasm, talks about this thing called Christmas, then imagines a complex plot – you could almost call it burglary – to prevent Christmas from happening. He travels all the homes of Whoville, while undergoing the steps of a relatively important psychological transformation, which just happened when he meets the little Cindy Lou in the middle of the night. Yet, if you excise the commercials, all this takes only 26 minutes – although the tears of uprising aroused ("In Whoville, they say … that Grinch's little heart grew up Three sizes that day! ") are powerful enough to make you feel like you're watching the full version of "It's a wonderful life".
Ron Howard's remake, entitled "How Grinch Flying Stole", starring Jim Carrey, unfolding in 12 different ways like Whoville's hairy Scrooge, remains one of Hollywood's most critically acclaimed films of the past 20 years. It was, however, a great success (the most profitable film of 2000). Much of what critics hated about it, aside from the fact that Jim Carrey had finally exhausted his reception, had come to the realization that it needed a special TV show that defined the perfection of the child and weighed her a thousand times. useless and boring bells and whistles. Plus – many more – have become less.
In the new and bright computer-animated fairy tale "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch, & dquo; same dynamic exists, at least in the abstract: a story born to be a succinct wonder of the Thessian narrative sharpens and swells in a feature film. Yet there is a crucial difference. The last thing the movie's directors, Yarrow Cheney ("The Secret Life of Pets") and Scott Mosier, want to be accused of is sacking a beloved classic. again. There is therefore a distinct sensation, in their visual and narrative ornaments, of the film doing everything in its power to stay true to the look and feel and inner spirit of the 1966 special.
Does this add anything (outside the length)? Maybe not. As the special has proven (and does it year after year), perfection is perfection. Yet, taken at ease (ie you have never seen this story, unlike countless children who will see this movie), "The Grinch" is a lively and enjoyable entertainment, with a performance voice, by Benedict Cumberbatch, who does not try to bend the story, as Carrey's (or Mike Myers' 2003) "Cat in the Hat" performance did, towards a malevolent goal of lawlessness. dump trucks. Cumberbatch, in his funny and respectful style, respects Grinch's grin: that he is a force of malicious chaos that represents something in each of us – the potential to be bad when mischief takes over.
It can not be denied, however, that it is a Grinch that has a clearer shade in its acrimony (if not in its color, its fur is always pale green), which makes it a misantropic crank with slightly more assimilable misanthropic beetle bark eyebrows. Cumberbatch gives him an American accent and speaks quickly, with an excess of casualness; the sound is less Karloff, with its dark and vivid British vowels, than Paul Giamatti in his greatest insight. The fact that the Grinch is a self-isolated neurotic, compensating for trauma of the past, is now in the foreground. At first he is at home and plays "All by Myself" on a pipe organ whose pipes gush out like a tangle of golden pasta (he is a ghost of soft rock.). It also has a joke-free narrative moment, reminiscent of the solitary holiday Ebenezer Scrooge spent in his role as a boy in "A Christmas Carol".
"The Grinch" has a visual design reminiscent of specialty Christmas stores. Whoville's houses look as frizzy and dilapidated as they are on the page, though they are now full of color, and the pristine snowscapes give the movie a sharper sense of place; Whoville could be the most fun ski resort in the world. When the Grinch stands on the tip of the spike extended in front of his door, watching the city downstairs, it's as if he were perched in an abyss. At the same time, it is the first "Grinch" that makes you feel that even in its remoteness, it belongs to the city; he's a Who's gone astray. The Christmas tree of Whos Village Square is so wonderful that it is a wonder. Of course, there are doses of the spectacular slapstick action required in any feature film of contemporary animation, most of which revolves around the logistics of Grinch to guide his sled. go up and down these slopes.
The famous doggerel of Dr. Seuss has been replaced by many imitations: the doggerel of Seuss, which works quite well, although there is no good reason for this, apart from the fact that the film has to offer Something original or it would have no reason to exist. This is the eternal paradox of the remake culture. We want a movie like "The Grinch" to press our nostalgia buttons, but in a cool enough way to delight and satisfy again. Jim Carrey's version did not do that, and as popular as it was at the time, I'm seriously wondering how much it's looked at now. For all those who grew up with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", "The Grinch" will not replace it. Yet, he is agile and affectionate in a way that can hang on to children today, and to more than a few adults, evoking the feeling that comes close enough. In the end, your heart will swell, but maybe just one or two sizes.
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