ne Christmas Eve, a baby crawls into Santa's (Ed Asner) sack of gifts and stows away to the North Pole. Once he's discovered, the elves adopt the human as one of their own and name him Buddy. It's not long before Buddy grows taller than his "parents," and by the time he's an adult, played by Will Ferrell, he towers over them all. This also creates problems on the assembly line, as he's too big to produce Christmas gifts at the required pace.
Buddy's adopted father, Pappa Elf (Bob Newhart), decides it's time to tell him the truth—he is a human, and his real father (James Caan) lives in New York City. Buddy immediately wants to find his real dad, but Pappa Elf warns him: Dad is on Santa's naughty list.
Undeterred and dressed as a North Pole elf, Buddy travels to New York City, where he innocently eats gum off the sidewalk and ingests cotton balls, thinking they are cotton candy. He meets his dad, a children's book publisher, who mistakes him for a singing telegram. Only when Buddy continues to pursue him does dad take pity on what he perceives as a mental case. He tolerates Buddy but refuses to admit their kinship.
Meanwhile, Buddy also gets a job as a department store elf, which he takes very seriously. He knows Santa is real and takes every act of the standard Christmas production at face value. Naturally, he's disappointed when the Santa who arrives at the store is not the Santa who he's known all his life. Buddy continues to create problems for people who treat Christmas as a marketing tool, and especially for those who lack Christmas spirit at all.
One such person is Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), a young girl working as another department store elf just to pay the bills. But Buddy discovers she has a wonderful singing voice and encourages her to share her gift. Jovie is reluctant, but warms to Buddy's infectious joy.
Ultimately, it's up to Buddy to save Christmas when Santa's sleigh crashes in Central Park. Can Buddy raise the city's Christmas spirit to a level that will help the sleigh fly? Will dad ever believe that elves and Santa are real? Will Jovie use her gift to bring joy to the world?
Irony for adults, slapstick for the kids
Elf is smart enough for adults to appreciate and for kids to know they're seeing something inventive. It's mildly ironic in playing with various Christmas myths, but never so sarcastic that it becomes cynical. For a completely innocent comedy, it still has bite, much like Pixar's Toy Story films.
Audiences will immediately see this when the film toys with popular elf myths. The visual depiction of elves making shoes and baking cookies in a tree is worth the price of admission. Then, to learn that the idea of parents putting toys under the tree are unbelievable myths in Santa's world shows you how the film will reverse social expectations.
An example of how this all comes together is when Buddy sees a department store Santa for the first time. In his naivete, he believes it's the real Santa whom he knows at the North Pole. When he discovers it's not, he gets into a logistical argument involving the kid on Santa's lap. Buddy's final comment, "You sit on a throne of lies," is a political attack on the fake Santa phenomenon, a representation of the character's pain at seeing Santa mimicked and a very funny line.
Will Ferrell walks through the whole movie with such an innocent smile that every silly stunt he performs wins you over. Ferrell sells the gags by acting more childlike than Harrison Ford in Regarding Henry. The elf suit does a lot for him, but Ferrell's personality comes through the pratfalls, where he takes as much of the scenery down with him as he can. He also genuinely relates to kids in many scenes. When he talks to a girl in a doctor's office, they have a completely normal conversation, with children's tones of voice.
Of course, it's a holiday movie, and it has its share of schmaltz. The end conveniently has everyone in the city watching the same news broadcast and working the same hours on Christmas Eve. This makes it possible for a single event to unite all. But it works because the film has earned it. It has presented intelligent analysis of myths and remained consistent with Buddy's character, so that the ultimate schmaltz moment is not a stretch. It's more a payoff of his quest.
Elf is a comedy for anyone. It doesn't take much to see that Will Ferrell dressed in an elf suit for 90 minutes is funny.
