"You sit on a throne of lies!"

Rating: 7/10 (13 February 2005)

Will Ferrell is a pure performer, everything he does, he goes head-first into. I didn't love him in Old School, though many many many other did love the over-the-top 37 year old college kid, but I did admire his enthusiasm for the role and his commitment to make it funny. His shtick works much better for me here in Elf, the story of a 6'4" elf named Buddy in Santa's workshop, twice as big as his fellow workers, though not twice as productive. His size hurts his ability to work hard, eventually leading to Papa Elf (the always devastatingly understated Bob Newhart) to tell Buddy that his father is a real human from New York, and Buddy came to the North Pole by accident. After leaving the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer-esquire North Pole for New York. The childish naiveté of Buddy in the corporate world of business New York at Christmas time gets him into trouble, first with a department store Santa (Artie Lange from the Howard Stern show) then with an children's author who is said to have sold more books than Dr. Seuss, the surly Miles Finch (Peter Dinklage). James Caan plays Buddy's real father, he has the difficult job of playing straight man to Will Ferrell while convincing us that he really does think his son worked for Santa Claus. Mary Steenbrugen is Caan's wife, a woman who takes to Buddy right away and does not question where he came from and how he knows her husband. And then there is Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), a department store clerk who falls for Buddy, even though he sounds like a 14 year old, but somehow that wins her over. There is a lot to Elf that can be dismissed as too out there, but it is the triumph of director Jon Favreau (Swingers) that we buy into Buddy's character, that we root for both he and Santa (Ed Asner) to save Christmas, and that we don't question what is going on with Jovie's fascination with Buddy. Farrell sells Buddy to the max, every time we see him, we see a man in yellow tights walking down the streets of New York (or Vancouver, either or), running out into traffic and hugging James Caan. What would Papa Corleone think? Finally, there are the cute little animals that live in the North Pole, Favreau brings us claymation character like the ones we see in "Rudolph" and countless other Christmas specials, and I'm a sucker for them. Especially walruses. This last touch, seen in the beginning of the film, takes the viewer back to their younger days, where every year we wonder if Santa will be able to leave the North Pole because of the thick fog, and every year, Rudolph comes to the rescue. I think that's where the film's charm comes from. While not a great film, Elf is harmless holiday fun for the entire family, well mostly harmless. Will Ferrell does wear yellow tights...