2004
Rated: PG for mild rude humor and language
Starring: Will Ferrell, Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, Bob Hope and James Caan
These days, a good, original holiday movie seems really hard to come by. I enjoyed “Miracle on 34th Street” when it was remade in 1994, but it wasn’t original. But, when I saw the trailers for “Elf” I knew it was a movie I had to see. I’m a HUGE fan of cheesy holiday movies (especially of the romance variety) and when I saw Will Ferrell playing an elf…I couldn’t resist.
Buddy (Farrell) believes he is an elf and lives at the North Pole with Papa Elf (Hope) and, of course, Santa. But, there is obviously something very different about Buddy from the other elves, one being that he’s well over 6 feet tall. After many mishaps due to Buddy’s unusual elf size, Papa Elf tells Buddy that he’s not really from the North Pole, but a place called New York. One year, many years ago, baby Buddy snuck out of his crib at the orphanage and into Santa’s bag. When Santa returned to the North Pole, he had no idea where Buddy had come from and so couldn’t return him. Papa Elf tells Buddy that his father lives in New York City and that it’s time he should go find him.
So, off Buddy sets off into the world “through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then [he walks] through the Lincoln Tunnel”. When Buddy wanders into a department store, he is mistaken for a worker and is given a job playing one of Santa’s elves. But after an altercation with the department store Santa (a misunderstanding really), he manages to track down his father, Walter (Caan), who is a children’s book editor. He believes Buddy to be crazy (though, wouldn’t you if a 6-foot plus man in an elf’s outfit claimed to be your long lost son?). But, he does take Buddy in at the encouragement of his wife (Steenburgen) and takes him into work, figuring he can get him a job in the mailroom while he tries to figure out just who Buddy really is.
This movie is heart-warming in so many ways. Buddy is like a child, discovering the world (and love) for the first time and many of his misunderstandings come from his childlike nature. With help from Jovie (another department store elf played by Deschanel—who you’ll discover has a wonderful singing voice), he “grows” up a bit while discovering who he is and helping his father come to terms with the fact that he has a grown son and that there is more to life than work. Kids from ages 5 and up will love this movie.
You can see it at the following times on TV: 12/12 at 9:00 p.m. on USA, the 13th at 4:00 p.m. and the 16th at 8:00 p.m. on CBS. It is, of course, out on DVD for those wishing to see it without commercial interruption.