This article is part of The Twelve Days of Doofmas, a daily series of articles on our favorite Christmas films that was released as Bonus Content leading up to Christmas Eve 2019.
The worst part of Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever was how much I didn’t hate it. I fully expected to – it’s a movie that screams cringe the entire way through. Plus – it’s Aubrey Plaza, who can be very hit or miss. But god damn, it was kind of a hit. Or at least – not a miss?
Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever has some pretty interesting DNA. It’s about 60% generic Lifetime movie, 20% cringey internet culture jokes, and 20% complete nonsense, in the best way. Grumpy Cat functions as a sort of reaction video Youtuber, making miscellaneous comments about the movie as it unfolds. It’s incredibly meta and self-aware. In fact, Grumpy Cat would make a perfect sidekick to Deadpool – the two share a very similar style of humour.
For example, near the start of the film, the leading human character, Crystal, is introduced riding her bike up to the mall where she seems to live, work and spend all her free time. Not to be outdone, the scene then cuts away to Aubrey Plaza in the recording booth, reminding the audience that she has top billing as Grumpy Cat, and don’t you forget it. It’s the kind of 5 second gag that feels like it was written as a placeholder. Writer and Director Tim Hill fully expected this joke to be knocked back by the Lifetime creative team for being “too weird” and “not relatable”. But, alas, they were already on their Christmas Break.
This is the style of comedy in Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever. The villains of this movie are a pair of dopes trying to steal enough money to buy a tour bus for their band. Their band, by the way, which consists of a lead singer and a bass guitarist. They run around making jokes about dad-rock in this movie that is presumably marketed to children. The impression it leaves you is that it was written in a single draft. The movie has a very strong apathetic energy, which not only suits Grumpy Cat, but genuinely made me laugh. Please don’t judge.
Surrounding the weird meta-jokes is a fairly straightforward Christmas petshop heist movie. You know – run of the mill stuff. It’s very generic, and despite having a few twists and turns, is mostly just there to fill out the time between Aubrey Plaza’s non sequiturs.
There’s also a remarkably unnecessary side plot with Crystal’s mother (who also works at the mall and spends all her time there) falling in love with Jesse (who also works at the mall and spends all his time there). In fact – we see Jesse host a christmas party at his house, and all the other party-goers brought presents that were clearly bought at the mall gift shop. It goes unremarked on, but is the kind of background detail that I appreciated. Buried behind this basic romance sub-plot is a nefarious story about people so underpaid at their mall jobs that they must spend all their time there, and can only afford gifts from there because of their 15% staff discount.
If this review is getting too workers-rights for you, then be warned – I’m only thinking about this because Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever features a remarkably high amount of anti-capitalist sentiment. It’s a very strange feeling – a movie simultaneously trying to be self aware and lampshade how much of a product it is, while also trying to sell you Grumpy Cat merch. At one point, the url https://www.grumpycats.com/ flashes on screen while Aubrey Plaza tells you about all the great Grumpy Cat buttons, mugs and calendars that would make perfect gifts this year.
Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever encourages you to livetweet it with the hashtag #whyamIwatchingthis. The most insidious thing about this movie is that they knew that they were going to be made fun of online, and leaned into it. It honestly leaves some parts of this movie feeling quite skeevy.
Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever is an enigma. It’s simultaneously self-aware and completely unaware. It’s anticapitalist and obsessed with selling merch. Tim Hill wrote AND directed this movie, executing on his bizarre vision, and god dammit, I enjoyed it more than I should have.
??? (three Christmas trees out of 5).
– Reuben
