Elf: Movie & DVD Review (2003)

(Originally published 2003)

The first few minutes of the funny new comedy “Elf” features a scene in which a dozen of the little darlings dart screaming from a burning tree house reminiscent of the one famously inhabited by the Keebler elves.

In what’s apparently a cookie-cooking mishap, the elves’ ovens burst into flames, leaving the tree engulfed in fire and the terrified tiny ones running for their lives. If you listen carefully, you can hear one especially frazzled elf commenting that if only he had been a cobbler, none of this would have happened to him.

In the real world, nothing is funny about a fire. Still, the way it’s handled here is unexpected and uproarious. At my screening, it brought the crowd to life, which was a nice change after seeing so many glum faces at “The Matrix Revolutions.”

The Keebler scene has nothing to do with the film’s plot, but it does help to establish the dark, absurdist tone director Jon Favreau favors early on. By its midpoint, “Elf” gives way to a sugary sweet undercurrent that wants to warm your heart with holiday cheer, but Favreau, working from a script by David Berenbaum, walks the line well. He doesn’t overdose on the sugar and, as such, his film becomes a bright spot in the budding holiday movie season.

In the film, “Saturday Night Live” alum Will Ferrell finds his best role to date as Buddy, a bumbling, 30-year-old man-child who, as an orphaned infant, crawled into Santa’s (Ed Asner) sack one Christmas Eve and was swept away to the North Pole.

There, in spite of his lumbering, decidedly non-elfin size, he was raised as an elf by Papa Elf (a perfectly cast Bob Newhart), who eventually encourages Buddy to return to New York City to reconnect with his real-life father, Walter (James Caan), a difficult man who has long been a mainstay on Santa’s naughty list.

Upon arriving in Manhattan, Buddy takes a day job as a department store elf—and the movie gets a lift, flirting with the sort of comedy David Sedaris captured in his biting, hilarious series of essays for National Public Radio, “The Santaland Diaries.” Ultimately, Favreau sidesteps Sedaris’ caustic brand of cynicism, but not before getting in a few clever jabs at the gross commercialization of the Christmas season. It’s only then that he adopts a more family-friendly tone and bolsters what the holiday season is supposed to mean.

Mary Steenburgen, Daniel Tay and Zooey Deschanel offer support as Buddy’s loving step mom, lonely half-brother, and love interest, respectively, but they have nothing on Ferrell, who finds himself, at long last, in a movie that realizes his gifts as a comedian. This is that rare fit between director, writer and star, with the sweet, wide-eyed, anything-goes Ferrell going a long way in securing the next several years of his movie career.

Grade: B