“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000), directed by Ron Howard, starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch, is a Christmas comedy film that revolves around the Grinch being investigated by Cindy Lou Who, played by Taylor Momsen. She would like to show her hometown of Whoville, who the Grinch is, and how he is not a terrible person. The Grinch is misunderstood despite his hatred of Christmas.

The Grinch lives on Mount Crumpit and is disturbed by Cindy Lou’s brothers, who knock on his door and get scared away by a life size animal statue. The brothers and their girlfriends, who come with them, scram back to town where they yell about the Grinch. This brings Mayor May Who’s attention and he asks Lou, their father who is a postman if what they are saying is true about seeing the Grinch. Lou denies it and covers up for them. It is clear that the onion loving creature does not want anything to do with the Whos of Whoville.

Cindy Lou Who, wonders who the Grinch is and why no one likes him. When she’s helping her dad in the mailroom, she finds the Grinch in the mailroom where her father works. The Grinch was crouching on the wall above the mailroom with his dog, Max in his hands. When Max sneezed, the Grinch said bless you, and Cindy Lou heard him and looked up and saw him. He tries to intimidate her by acting scary after getting down, but it doesn’t work. Soon, after a few minutes of intimidating her and saving her from being squished by a packaging machine, he ends up wrapping her like a Christmas present in the mailroom. He then goes back to his home atop of Mount Crumpit, leaving her wrapped and alone in the mailroom.

Cindy Lou’s curiosity about the Grinch grows as she interviews his foster parents, who are two elderly sisters who took the Grinch into their home. The sisters explain to Cindy Lou how the Grinch was dropped on their doorstep and did not discover him until the morning after a Christmas get together. They had known he was special and unique and still raised him as their own. However, he was bullied in school when he was 8 years old for being green and hairy by Mayor May Who. Mayor May Who taunted him for his beard and would repeatedly told him he would not have any chance with Martha May Whovier, played by Christine Baranski. The day before a holiday gift exchange in the Grinch’s class, he handmade a metal angel tree topper for Martha May. He had come to school with it and covered his head using a brown bag, but things went wrong when his teacher forced him to remove it. He was ridiculed by all of his classmates except for Martha May, who had a crush for him, but denied it when interviewed by Cindy Lou after the Grinch’s foster parents were interviewed by her.

One day Cindy Lou decides to take a trip to the Grinch’s house, and she tells him about the 1000th annual Whobilation that the mayor would be having. He is kind of intrigued by her announcement of the Whobilation, but he is still not convinced he should go. This changes after Cindy Lou tells him she will nominate him as cheermeister for Whobilation Day, and he will receive an award. Surprisingly, he became convinced and accepts Cindy Lou’s invitation. Prior to Cindy Lou informing the Grinch about Whobilation Day, he jumps at her while waving his hairy fingers at her and tries to scare her ferociously once again. He acts foolishly to try to scare her away, but she is not scared of him at all.

The Grinch attends Whobilation Day where he enjoys the festivities of it such as trying who -pudding, who-fudge, potato sack racing, dancing in a conga line, and taking a ride in the chair of cheer. After the festivities are over, Mayor May Who gives him his award which is a razor. This was very hurtful for the Grinch. When the Grinch was younger mayor May Who (actor Jeffrey Tambor) humiliated him about having a beard at 8 years old which caused a young Grinch to use a razor and shave his beard and come to school the next day for the gift exchange with his head covered with a brown bag. As a result of being reminded of the humiliation, the Grinch takes the razor and shaves Mayor May Who’s hair down the middle of his head, and he scolds the Whos about only caring for the materialistic part of Christmas. His rampage continues as he steals a flask from a Who and spits the liquid out in it towards a lighter that ignites a giant Christmas tree in the town on fire, leading to panic across the town.

Fed up with Whoville and the mayor’s harassment, an angry Grinch strikes up a plan to steal Christmas from the Whos. He designs a Santa Claus costume for himself and welds a sleigh that he will use to fly to Whoville and begin breaking into the homes of innocent Whos, by climbing through their chimney from their roofs. “You’re A Mean One Mr Grinch”, sung by Jim Carrey plays in the background of this scene, as he sewed his costume together and gathered metal junk and tools for welding his sleigh together. The catchy tune is an iconic part of the nostalgic film.

The Grinch uses a long vacuum to suck up the gifts, decorations, and foods from the Whoville homes quickly and successfully. Cindy Lou’s home was the first Who home he broke into. He takes food from Cindy Lou’s ice box and attempts to stuff their tree up the chimney, but the sound of his attempts wakes up Cindy Lou who came downstairs for a cup of water and found the Grinch behind her tree wrangling it. He tells her a lie about taking it to his workshop to fix it, as there is one light on it that isn’t working. She believes him and asks him what Christmas is about. He tells her another lie and sends her back to her room with her cup of water. Cindy Lou tells the Grinch, who she believes is Santa Clause, that she believes the Grinch is sweet and for Santa not to forget about him.

After ransacking the homes of Whoville, the Grinch takes a gigantic present filled sack to Mount Crumpit in his sleigh and plans to push it off a ledge, but this doesn’t work as he realizes Whoville understands that Christmas isn’t about having contests or gifts but being with their family and more. Back in Whoville, Cindy Lou is scolded by Mayor May Who for the Grinch stealing the presents, but her father defends her. Additionally, she sneaks to the Grinch’s home on Mount Crumpit soon after her father defended her. Meanwhile, the Whos hold hands and sing around the large Christmas tree in their town and sing Christmas songs and enjoy the holiday without being materialistic. This is very emotional for the Grinch to hear the Whos embracing Christmas and singing cheerfully from Mount Crumpit, leading to his heart growing 3 sizes bigger with a strong liking for Christmas.

As his heart grew bigger, Cindy was hiding from him on his makeshift sleigh he used to steal Christmas and could not get out, as it was on a ledge and slowly falling off. The Grinch finds out where she is and dramatically saves her. The duo heads to Whoville together, where Cindy Lou reunites with her family and Martha May declares her love for the Grinch and the authorities a pardon the Grinch, after he apologizes for stealing Christmas.

Christmas dinner is celebrated in the Grinch’s home, and he carves the roast beast for all the Whos he’s invited to enjoy it with him. All is now well with Whoville and the Grinch.

Here are a few fun facts about the behind the scenes of the film:

• Jim Carrey’s prosthetic makeup for the Grinch took 8 and half hours on the first day the makeup team put it on him.
• The glass bottles in the Grinch’s lair were edible bottles created from sugar glass that allowed him to ingest it.
• Cindy Lou Who’s nose was different from the other prosthetic noses the actors had, because Taylor Momsen was too young at the time to wear any prosthetics.
• Brian Grazer hired a man trained to teach CIA operatives how to handle different types of torture for Jim Carrey, so he could endure acting as the Grinch. He used distraction methods such as smoking as much as he could or hitting himself in the leg and even letting someone he knows smack him. These methods would help distract Carrey from being extremely uncomfortable in his yak hair Grinch suit.