#98: Elf
Release Date: November 7th, 2003
Format: Streaming (Max)
Written by: David Berenbaum
Directed by: Jon Favreau
3.5 Stars
I’m pretty sure Elf makes my Mt. Rushmore of Christmas movies, although I’m not the most qualified to make such judgments (see my review for A Christmas Story).
Elf is probably the funniest of the Christmas movies, top to bottom. Will Ferrell is perfectly cast. The key to Will Ferrell’s appeal is that he looks like the straight-laced next door neighbor on a 1960s sitcom, but beneath that facade, he is capable of portraying deeply odd and disturbing comic characters.
On Saturday Night Live he established himself as, in my opinion, a top ten cast member of all-time (we’re talking Belushi, Murphy, Murray, Hartman-levels), but his early starring roles in feature films were SNL-adjacent flops like Superstar and Night at the Roxbury. Still though, Ferrell would pop up in other comedian’s films in supporting roles and completely steal the show (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Zoolander).
Then, in 2003, he took over comedy. First as Frank the Tank, in Old School, which tapped directly into his greatest comedic strengths. Frank is a seemingly quiet, unassuming man living in suburbia, happy to make weekend plans with his wife shopping at big box stores. That is until Frank has the opportunity to join a fraternity in his 30s and completely relive his much wilder college days. The movie was a hit, and I remember seeing Old School several times in theaters with my friends. Frank the Tank was the star of the show.
And then later that year, along came Elf. No longer just the funny guy from SNL, Old School created a real appetite for Will Ferrell’s brand of unhinged, but bizarrely sweet comedy. Elf utilizes him perfectly. His Buddy the Elf is disturbed and destructive, but also innocent and precocious. He’s a great Christmas protagonist.
And supporting Will Ferrell is a murderer’s row of great performers, comedic or otherwise: James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, Amy Sedaris, Peter Dinklage, Faizon Love, Jon Favreau (who also directs), Andy Richter, Kyle Gass…they even get Artie Lange to play the mall store Santa. And last but not least, our narrator, the great Bob Newhart. His warm, buttoned-down performance and storytelling give the movie a wonderful foundation. Overall, it’s an incredible cast.
So what’s my beef? How is this not a 4-star Christmas movie?
I suppose it’s not Elf’s fault, but none of it makes any goddamn sense. Thankfully Elf leans much more into the fantastical and silly than something like, say, The Santa Clause, but it still follows that familiar Christmas movie trope where audiences are to believe that this story has real adults existing in a real world where a real Santa Claus exists. That is truly bizarre. It’s so bizarre that I’m hoping a writer explores it someday by re-framing the trope and showing what would actually happen: Santa would be captured by the US government, his reindeer would be quarantined and subjected to horrific lab testing, and his North Pole would be invaded and occupied faster that Baghdad. Might make for a funny, perverse movie.
And do we discuss the fact that Zooey Deschanel’s character is attracted to a deranged man with childlike innocence? Like, romantically and physically attracted? In the final scene of the movie, we even see that they have a child together that they raise in the North Pole. This makes her an even stranger character than Buddy the Elf, akin to those women who fall in love with violent convicts and write them letters while they’re in prison.
But here I am bitching about a Christmas movie whose primary audience is children. In the spirit of the season, I’ll end on a heartwarming final thought: Elf immediately became a Christmas classic because it is really funny and warm-hearted, and it shows how everybody is special, even if they are a weirdo in green tights and a funny hat, in a movie that makes no sense.
