DVD Review: An Elfen Good Time

By Kaylie Brannan
December 6, 2008                                                                                                  

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, the Christmas season is speeding towards us at full throttle.  Retail stores are snake-charming shoppers with their alluring price slashing. 

Home improvement stores look like Manhattan street salesmen with their mass arrays of equally-likeable pre-lit Christmas trees instead of knock-off designer purses.  Even big-name coffee chains have reintroduced their season-specific, ginger-something lattes and frappes, to ensure that each and every one of us can literally have a taste of Christmas.  Need a break from all the commercial yuletide mumbo-jumbo?

Writer David Berenbaum and director Jon Favreau's 2003 holiday hit Elf is a refreshing screenful of Christmas spirit.  The first thirty seconds alone ought to have you chuckling as the narrator, Papa Elf (Bob Newhart), outlines the types of jobs elves can hold as scenes slideshow by involving a blazing Keebler elf oak tree, a very intoxicated Travelocity-esque gnome and an incontinent, gassy troll. 

A few minutes later, viewers are introduced to the main character, Buddy (Will Ferrell) the Elf.  An orphaned infant, Buddy sneaks into Santa's big red bag and goes unnoticed until he crawls out onto Santa's workshop floor.  Raised by Papa Elf until he realizes he does not exactly fit in, Buddy sets off in search of his birth father (James Caan), an unsuspecting former hippy-turned-publishing executive, living where else but the Big Apple.

Much like British actor Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean character, Buddy's almost alien-like adventures in the "human world" are what really spark the laughter.  Before being accepted into his father's family, Buddy finds himself wandering the streets of New York City during his favorite time of year. 

After being mistaken for a store employee (he never changes out of his green and gold Elfin outfit), Buddy spends the night in a deserted Gimbels department store, but finds no time to sleep.  By morning, he's festooned the place with hundreds of paper snowflake chains, Lite Brite signs welcoming Santa, Lego city skylines and even a beautifully Etch-a-Sketched rendition of the Mona Lisa.

It's there in Gimbels that he meets Jovie (Zooey Desschannel), another elf (read: employee) who not only gives him the time of day, but as Buddy puts it, makes his tongue swell up when she's around.   

Buddy's little-boy-in-a-man's body silliness is easily relatable to both children and adults alike.  For one, who hasn't wondered what an elf's diet consists of?  "We elves like to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup," Buddy (Ferrell) tells his new found family. 

In another scene, good-hearted Buddy tries to please his new family by making breakfast - comprised of spaghetti noodles, maple and chocolate syrup, M&Ms and crumbled chocolate Pop Tarts. 

Haven't we all wondered what the North Pole and Santa are really like at some time or another?  Buddy tells us that there's singing and snow and Santa doesn't actually smell like the "beef and cheese" mall imposters.

Elf is a light-hearted seasonal flick that is sure to inspire chuckles, giggles and even a few side-splitting "son of a nutcracker!"  While the rest of America is being trampled at shopping malls or using credit they don't have, do yourself a favor - watch Elf and remember what the childlike wonder of Christmas spirit is really all about.  In Buddy's own words, you'd be a "cotton headed ninny muggings" if you didn't.