I was lucky enough to see Elf when it came out in cinemas, in the heady festive season of 2003, when it was up against another titan of tinsel: Love, Actually. If you had asked 14 year old me if she felt lucky seeing Elf at the cinema, she would have said ‘No’, because she was out on what she thought was a date with her first(ish) boyfriend, and not only had he chosen the stupid kids’ film over the clearly far more romantic and sophisticated Richard Curtis offering, he had also brought two friends along with him. So let’s not ask her.
Instead, ask me, the 34 year old woman who curled up in her pyjamas on Thursday evening to rewatch this most magical of 21st century Christmas films.
Elf is the story of Buddy, a human man who has been raised by elves in the North Pole. Buddy’s origin story is actually pretty sad, though it’s not dwelt on too heavily in the film. He’s the result of a love affair between two very young people. When he’s born, his mother surrenders him to an orphanage (and later passes away), and his father never knows about his existence. When Santa visits said orphanage, baby Buddy climbs into Santa’s sack and gets shipped back to the North Pole. When he’s discovered, one of the top elves volunteers to raise the baby as his own.* By the time Buddy’s 30, he’s 6f 4in, but still hasn’t worked out that he’s not an elf. After all, he’s the most elfiest of all the elfs, a truly enthusiastic lover of toys, candy, and all things Christmas. The devastating discovery happens when he overhears two other elfs discussing his inability to keep up with the toy-making quotas, chalking it up to his unusual heritage. Cue an identity crisis, and the realisation that, to truly know who he is, he must travel to the magical land of New York to find his father.
What follows is an endearing fish-out-of-water comedy, made all the more gorgeous by Ferrell’s commitment to playing Buddy with unwavering, unironic, wide-eyed wonder. In the same way that Michael Caine committed 100% to being a serious, straight-up Victorian Gentleman in a London populated by Muppets, Ferrell commits 100% to being a childlike elf in a New York surrounded by, well, New Yorkers. The contrast creates the magic. However, instead of being transformed by the people and places around him, Buddy ends up being the transformative element in this film, bringing much needed joy and magic to a cynical, stressed-out city. Sure, he freaks people out a bit by being a grown man in an elf costume and putting maple syrup on everything he eats, but it doesn’t take long for people to warm to his sense of wonder. Well, everyone except his father.
Buddy finds his father but, unsurprisingly, this blue shirt and camel-coat wearing, publishing house director, New Yorker (played with arousing sternness by James Caan) is unwilling to accept this weirdo as his son. The action of the film then revolves around Buddy’s struggle to be accepted by his father.
Alongside his battle to be accepted by his dad, Buddy also finds himself in a battle to save Christmas. Having come straight from Santa’s HQ, it’s unsurprising that Buddy’s belief in Santa is strong. However, the human world he finds himself in is less innocent and wondrous (to be fair, it is New York). People prioritise work over family, cabs blast their horns, strange metal toothed stairways present terrifying obstacles and, worst of all, people don’t believe in Santa. This is a world that Buddy doesn’t understand and, what’s worse, the lack of belief in Santa means that Santa’s sleigh is in danger of breaking down (it runs on Christmas-spirit, obviously).
One of the things I love most about this film is that, rather than Buddy adjusting to the world he finds himself in, he adjusts the world to him. He doesn’t become less enamoured of life, less obsessed with Christmas, less “Buddy”. Instead, he pulls people along with him, encouraging them to see the wonder in the world. For example, he spends an afternoon working in the darkened, soulless mailroom at his dad’s workplace, and by the end of it all the workers are singing together and having a dance off. (I said he spread festive cheer: I didn’t say he was good for productivity).
It would be a waste of everyone’s time to ask whether Elf is a Christmas film. This is indisputably a Christmas film. It has Christmas running through its veins. If you cut this film, it will bleed baubles. I’d go as far to say that this is the greatest Christmas film of the 21st Century. All the obvious things are there: traditional imagery, a Christmas setting, a family-focus, a miserly Scrooge character who finds redemption by turning away from money and towards people. It’s the character of Buddy, though, that makes this such an unrivalled joy. Like Christmas itself, Buddy comes into people’s lives and brings warmth, wonder and joy. It’s not really that he makes the world more magical, but that he’s gifted in seeing the magic in mundane things and showing it to the people around him. He embodies a kind of earnest enthusiasm for life that isn’t very cool, but that is very, very Christmas.
*Arguably, it would have been more sensible and humane to return him to the human world, but then we wouldn’t have a film