I was pretty skeptical about the Grumpy Cat Christmas movie until I learned that Aubrey Plaza would be voicing the cat. She's about 80 percent of why Parks and Recreation is so funny and she's totally Grumpy Cat's kindred spirit. Plaza's the reason Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever was a huge hit. The plot of the film was pretty basic: friendless girl attempts to save Christmas from a couple of bungling bad guys. But Plaza's deadpanned annoyed lines were what saved the film, and made it great to watch.
The best part of the movie is how self-aware it was. Grumpy Cat broke the fourth wall about a hundred times and it made the movie so much better. There's nothing worse than a bad film that thinks it's great. But between Grumpy Cat calling out the sappiness of things and Aubrey Plaza tweeting about how terrible the film was, it made viewers feel like they were all part of some big inside joke.
Lifetime embraced the cheese-factor and let everyone know that they understood that this was just supposed to be a silly film. As one person on Twitter put it, "This movie is like if #sharknado had a Christmas special." That's totally accurate, and here are six times the self-awareness saved the movie.
WHEN IT MOCKED THE CHANNEL IT WAS ON
Grumpy Cat complains about the sappiness of the film and then says, “Wait, I forgot. It’s a Lifetime movie.” Then, after the young girl Chrystal is rescued, her mother is concerned that the two thieves did "something" to her. Fortunately Grumpy Cat reminds us all, "it's not that kind of Lifetime movie." I love that the channel is recognizing that it's about 50 percent cheesy love stories and 50 percent grisly, murderous sex exploitations. Anytime a network makes fun of themselves, I'm a fan.
WHEN IT MADE FUN OF THE UNREALISTIC CIRCUMSTANCES
Don't worry, Grumpy Cat totally knows that they don't make paintball guns for cats. The movie just took creative license with that scene. She also knows that cats can't drive, but hey, this is her movie and she's getting behind the wheel if she wants to.
WHEN IT TALKED ABOUT THE BUDGET
Near the end of the movie Grumpy and Chrystal were about to crash through the mall's glass doors to escape when suddenly...Chrystal stopped and casually opened the doors. Plaza's character wants you to know that they totally had every intention to burst through all dramatically, but "they didn't have the budget to shatter doors." They did, however, have the budget to knock over the security booth outside the mall, so we got some set carnage.
WHEN IT REFERENCED THE PLOT
Chrystal gets mad at Grumpy Cat for knocking over a display when they're trying to hide, and Grumpy casually reminds her that "she lit up the whole santa village like one scene ago." There are several other moments where Grumpy Cat acknowledged that the whole movie plot could have been avoided if Chrystal had just gone to the police as soon as the dog was stolen. But as she points out, that would mean a lack of ad revenue so a prolonged plot was called for.
WHEN IT PLUGGED MERCHANDISE
Several times throughout the movie we were reminded that all sorts of Grumpy Cat merchandise is available from T-shirts to stuffed animals and everything in between. But hey, the stuff they have is so cute that I kind of didn't even mind all the product placement.
WHEN IT HINTED AT A SEQUEL
After the car hit the security booth there's a tenuous moment where you're not sure if Grumpy Cat survived the crash. But then Plaza piped in to remind us that the Lifetime execustives are probably already thinking of a sequel so there's no way the cat dies in the movie. I'd be OK with a sequel, especially if they go with Grumpy Cat's suggestion, "Grumpy's Worst Vacation in Meowui: Hawaiian Style." Watching Aubrey Plaza as a super meta Grumpy Cat is kind of all I want in life, and I'll watch as many sequels as Lifetime makes.
Images: Lifetime (4); grumpycatsworstchristmasever (2)/Tumblr
