A wonderfully fun, Christmas time comedy.
Buddy (Will Ferrell) is a human who as a baby at the orphanage snuck out of his crib and climbed into Santa Claus' (Ed Asner) bag. There he finds himself accidently brought to the North Pole. There he is adopted by Papa Elf (Bob Newhart) and grows up believing himself to be an elf. When he discovers that he is in fact a human, he decides to travel to New York and meet his birth father (James Caan). However he learns that his father is on the naughty list and possess little Christmas spirit. When he meets his father, the two have a hard time connecting and he doesn't believe Buddy's story about being raised by elves.
What makes this movie work so well is that underneath all of the comedy, this is a film with a real sense of heart. The original script for the film was dark and quite cynical. This script was written by David Berenbaum and had been around since 1993 with the idea of Jim Carrey as the star. When much later the script made its way to director Jon Favreau, Favreau was initially turned off by this darkness. However after some thought he realized that this could be turned into something much lighter and less cynical. Favreau said about this film, "I wanted to keep it a PG movie, not a PG-13 movie that made fun of Christmas." The result was a very warm-hearted and charming Christmas movie. This good-hearted charm shows up from the very start. The early scenes in the North Pole are both very funny and sweet. I love how the elves don't bully or ostracize Buddy for being very different, but they always go out of their way to make him feel like he belongs. This undeniable sweetness is present throughout the whole film. Much of the comedy comes from Buddy's wide-eyed innocence. No matter what happens to him this innocence and sense of awe for the world around him, never fades aways. Though there is a lot of fish out of water comedy, the film never feels like it is completely making fun of the character, but instead inviting you to try and see the world through Buddy's eyes and see how magical it can bad. There is also a wonderfully sweet romance here that works perfectly. This is especially true because of the great chemistry between Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel.
Besides just being sweet this movie is also very funny. Will Ferrell is seen to his best advantage here. He brings a lot of comedic energy to the character and his joyous and innocent delivery of each joke makes each one all the funnier. Ferrell even got to improvise much of the comedy. The scene where he first arrives in New York is completely improvised. On the last day of shooting Will Ferrell and a small crew walked around New York as Will improvised a lot of very funny comedy. This is not the only wonderful comedy sequence in the film. Buddy's first date, his interaction with the very short writer Miles Finch (Peter Dinklage) and especially his meeting of the department store Santa are wonderful and have naturally found their way into the Christmas memories of many movie fans. The department store Santa scene lead to a change in the film. The store used in the movie was originally going to be Macy's as a tribute to Miracle on 34th Street (1947). However Macy's did not want the film to show their store having a fake Santa, feeling that would hurt their image. So to keep the Miracle on 34th Street tribute the department store used changed to Gimbels which was the other store used in that classic movie. It is a good thing that this scene was kept as it is a highlight of the picture and has become a favorite of many Christmas movie fans, adoring T-shirts, GIFs and much more. Also giving a lot of good comedy to this movie is the scenes between Buddy and his dad. The contrast between Ferrell’s high energy and innocent performance contrasted with James Caan, playing one of the tough guy characters he played so wonderfully, simply leads to a lot of really funny moments.
This movie has rightfully become considered a real Christmas classic and will continue to be a Christmas tradition for movie fans for many years to come.
Resources Used
Christmas in the Movies by Jermey Arnold
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