Psycho's Movie Reviews #357: Elf (2003)

Elf is a 2003 American Christmas comedy film directed by Jon Favreau, written by David Berenbaum, and starring Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, Edward Asner, and Bob Newhart. The film centres on Buddy, a human raised by Santa's elves, who learns about his origins and heads to New York City to meet his biological father.

Elf was released in the United States on November 7, 2003, by New Line Cinema and became a major critical and commercial success, grossing $220 million worldwide against a $33 million budget. Ferrell's performance as Buddy the Elf was praised by critics and audiences alike, with many calling it one of his best performances. The film inspired the 2010 Broadway musical Elf: The Musical and NBC's 2014 stop motion animated television special Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas. It is often listed among the greatest Christmas films of all time.

Plot

On Christmas Eve, a baby at an orphanage crawls into Santa Claus' sack and is unknowingly taken back to the North Pole. After the child is discovered at the workshop, the elves name him Buddy after his diaper's brand label and Papa Elf adopts him. Buddy is accepted by the elf community and grows up thinking he is an elf, but soon learns that he is really a human. Papa Elf explains that Buddy was born to Walter Hobbs and Susan Wells, and that Susan put him up for adoption prior to her death. Walter now works as a children's book publisher at the Empire State Building in New York City, unaware of Buddy's existence. Santa reveals that Walter is on the Naughty List due to his selfishness, but suggests Buddy could help redeem Walter.

Buddy travels to New York and finds Walter at work, but Walter mistakes him for a Christmas-gram messenger and has him ejected. Buddy heads to a local Gimbels department store and meets Jovie, an unenthusiastic employee with whom he is instantly smitten. Hearing that Santa will be at the store the following day, Buddy redecorates the store overnight. However, upon realizing that the Gimbels Santa is not the genuine article, Buddy unmasks him and causes a brawl in the store that the manager Wanda breaks up.

Walter reluctantly bails Buddy out of the police station and takes him for a DNA test, confirming that Buddy is his biological son. Dr. Leonardo convinces Walter to take Buddy home to meet his stepmother Emily and half-brother Michael. Walter and Michael are unnerved by Buddy's strange behaviour, but Emily insists that they care for him until he "recovers". Michael warms up to Buddy after they defeat a gang of bullies in a snowball fight and encourages Buddy to ask Jovie out on a date, which she accepts. During the date, the two fall in love.

Meanwhile, Walter's publishing company is failing after their latest book flops. Walter's boss, Fulton Greenway, expects Walter to have a new book ready by Christmas Eve. Walter and his team secure a meeting with best-selling children's author Miles Finch, but Buddy interrupts the meeting and mistakes Finch, who has dwarfism, for an elf. Buddy unintentionally insults Finch before the latter attacks him and leaves the meeting, upon which Walter loses his temper and disowns Buddy. Heartbroken, Buddy writes an apology note on an Etch A Sketch and leaves Walter's apartment.

Upon finding Finch's notebook full of ideas, Walter and his team scramble to create a book to pitch. As Walter prepares to pitch the book to Greenway, Michael arrives and informs Walter of Buddy's departure. Realizing his mistake, Walter quits his job and walks out with Michael to find Buddy. Meanwhile, Buddy sees Santa's sleigh crash in Central Park, attracting a large crowd. Santa explains that the sleigh's engine is lost and cannot fly without it due to a shortage of Christmas spirit.

Buddy finds the engine and reunites with Walter and Michael. Walter apologizes to Buddy for how he treated him and accepts him as his son. After he takes them to meet Santa, Michael takes Santa's list and reads it in front of television news cameras gathered outside the park, proving that Santa is real. A group of Central Park Rangers, who are angry at Santa for placing them on the Naughty List, chase the sleigh as Buddy tries to reattach the engine. Jovie leads the crowd and those watching on television in singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", raising enough Christmas spirit to fully power the sleigh without the engine.

By the following Christmas, Buddy writes a book about his life, which becomes a bestseller and allows Walter to establish his own publishing company. Buddy also marries Jovie and brings their new-born daughter Susie to visit Papa Elf.

Production

Development

David Berenbaum initially wrote the script in 1993, with Chris Farley and Jim Carrey being early candidates to play Buddy. Berenbaum's screenplay underwent uncredited rewrites by Scot Armstrong, Chris Henchy, and the writing team of Adam McKay and Will Ferrell. Garry Shandling was offered the role of Walter Hobbs but declined. Wanda Sykes was originally cast as the Gimbels manager Wanda but later dropped out. According to Favreau, the script was initially "much darker" and did not interest him, although he was interested in working with Ferrell's first post-SNL movie. Asked to rewrite it, a turning point came when he realized he could make Buddy's world an homage to the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials. This allowed him to conceive of a movie that could be PG rated as opposed to the original script, which he guessed would have been rated PG-13.

Filming

Principal photography began on December 2, 2002, and wrapped on March 7, 2003. Filming took place in New York City, as well as in Vancouver and at Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam, British Columbia.

The film makes heavy use of forced perspective to exaggerate the size of Buddy compared to all the other elves. Stop motion animation was employed for certain sequences. CGI usage was kept to a minimum due to Favreau's own preference, something that he would later note he "had to fight very hard" for.

Zooey Deschanel singing was not in the original script, and Favreau added it when he learned she was a singer. When Buddy starts singing in the middle of Santaland at Gimbels, the lyrics were not scripted and Will Ferrell improvised the song on the spot.

Post-Production

Apart from snow, most of the computer generated imagery (CGI) in the film was created by Rhythm & Hues Studios. Buddy's belch after drinking a two-litre bottle of Coca-Cola was dubbed by voice actor Maurice LaMarche.

Release/Reception/Box Office

On Rotten Tomatoes, Elf holds an approval rating of 85% based on 194 reviews, and an average rating of 7.05/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A movie full of Yuletide cheer, Elf is a spirited, good-natured family comedy, and it benefits greatly from Will Ferrell's funny and charming performance as one of Santa's biggest helpers." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, calling it "one of those rare Christmas comedies that has a heart, a brain and a wicked sense of humour, and it charms the socks right off the mantelpiece." Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gave the film two out of four stars, saying: "Ferrell makes the damn thing work. Even though he can't get naked or use naughty words, there's a devil of comedy in Ferrell, and he lets it out to play. Director Jon Favreau has the good sense to just stand out of his way." The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, saying: "While the words "instant holiday classic" might be pushing it, Elf is at the very least a breezily entertaining, perfectly cast family treat." A. O. Scott of The New York Times also gave the film a positive review, saying: "Elf is a charming, silly family Christmas movie more likely to spread real joy than migraine, indigestion and sugar shock. The movie succeeds because it at once restrains its sticky, gooey good cheer and wildly overdoes it." Anna Smith of Empire magazine gave the film a three out of five stars and said: "Ferrell's man-child invites sympathy and sniggers, making this amusing despite some flimsy plotting. Sight gags and a Santa-centred story should keep the kids happy too." Plugged In gave the film a positive review, writing: "The elf-reared Buddy has a heart as big as the arctic north. Does his movie match it?"

Elf grossed $176.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $47.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $223.9 million, against a production budget of $33 million.

The film opened at number two at the box office in the U.S. with $31.1 million, finishing behind The Matrix Revolutions, also in its first week. It topped the box office on its second week of release, beating out Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. In the United Kingdom, it opened in second behind Love Actually. The 2018, 2019, and 2020 reissues earned $442,000, $786,000, and $2 million respectively.

Budget $33 million

Box office $223.3 million

My Review

The perfect holiday movie for the cynical New Yorker (or anybody from any other metropolis) is so colourful and cheerful, yet not one that will give you a sugar overdose. It's the story of Buddy the elf, Will Ferrell, an actor I normally can't abide. He's an orphan who crawled into Santa's bag and was adopted by bachelor elf Bob Newhart and when he learns the truth of who he is heads to the Big Apple to locate his father, the cynical James Caan, and ends up finding a family.

Stepmom Mary Steenburgen (along with Dianne Wiest and Sissy Spacek the perfect on-screen mom) immediately takes to him, half brother Daniel Tay finds a playmate and world weary Zooey Deschanel goes from wanting to kill him on their first meeting to completely entranced by his sweetness. Caan must find the kid in himself to from the Scrooge like publisher to a loving husband and father, and that will take a Christmas miracle.

Having not seen this until now, I felt like a complete freeze miser for unintentionally missing it, although I did see the musical on Broadway in 2012. This film pays great tribute to our modern Christmas culture with references to the Franken-Bass TV specials of my childhood and even gets a very funny Keebler elf reference in as well. Who better to play Santa than Ed Asner? He's completely loveable with absolutely no Lou Grant gruffness.

One of the funniest gags is the re-emergence of the long defunct Gimbles department store where Buddy meets Deschanel and turns the Santa village upside down by redecorating it overnight. When he surprises her in the employee lounge (complete with shower) as she sings "Baby It's Cold Outside", it's a magical moment, one of many that starts with the sight of Santa's real village.

Everybody is absolutely perfect here, not a false note in the film. So old fashioned in theme but very modern in spirit, this never falters in any way. The ensemble seems to have been magically delicious in loving the script because they are all filled with joy even when acting grumpy like veteran little actor Peter Dinklage, playing one of Caan's prestigious clients whom Ferrell accidentally insults. Putting my own big city cynicism away for the evening, this made me feel like Scrooge the morning after all of his nightmares when the spirit of Christmas returned to him. At times, this can even bring on a tear of joy.

Elf isn't a perfect Christmas movie, but it was sweet and charming with a great cast. The script can be a little too fluffy and unfocused sometimes though, while the pace occasionally lags and some jokes such as Buddy eating the sweets felt forced. However, it does look terrific, with the locations striking and the cinematography very nice. The soundtrack is a nice addition too, it made me nostalgic and all the more ready for Christmas. The story while simple and a tad predictable is at least original and well-meaning, while the direction is credible. The cast is what gives Elf its staying power and charm. Although I am not a fan of Will Ferrell, I think he really shone here as Buddy, while Zooey Deschannel is beautiful and a huge part of the film's charm, James Caan is a suitably gruff father-like figure and Bob Newhart is wonderful. All in all, it is a sweet film if you forgive the slightly cliché ending, by all means not for all but the cast do save the day. 8/10