Elf

Directed by:	Jon Favreau
Written by:	David Berenbaum
Release date:	November 7, 2003
Running time:	1 hour, 37 minutes
Rating:	PG
Available on:	VHS DVD Blu-ray Universal Media Disc iTunes

Elf is a 2003 American Christmas comedy film directed by Jon Favreau and written by David Berenbaum. It stars Will Ferrell as the main character, Buddy the Elf.

Synopsis

SPOILER: Plot details or story follow.

A baby crawls into Santa Claus' (Ed Asner) sack while he is delivering toys to an orphanage one Christmas Eve. He unwittingly takes the baby back to the North Pole, where Papa Elf (Bob Newhart) volunteers to raise him. He is named William, but they rename him Buddy (Will Ferrell) because he was wearing 'Little Buddy Diapers'. He is raised unaware that he is actually a human, until his enormous size and poor toy-making abilities force Papa Elf to tell him the truth. The old elf reveals that Buddy was born to Walter Hobbs (James Caan) and Susan Wells and given up for adoption, and that Walter never knew that he was born. He explains how Susan later died, and that Walter now works at a children's book company in New York City. Santa tells Buddy that Walter is on "the naughty list"; nevertheless, he sets out for New York to find his father.

Upon arriving in the city, Buddy displays his ignorance in several ways, as he crosses the street at the wrong time, chews discarded gum on the subway station's handrails, and takes a coffee shop's claim to have the "world's best cup of coffee" literally. He eventually finds his father in the Empire State Building, but an incredulous Walter Hobbs has him thrown out. He takes a security guard's sarcastic suggestion to "get back to Gimbel's", where he is mistaken for an employee and meets the lovely but unenthusiastic Jovie (Zooey Deschanel). The next morning, he is shocked to discover that Gimbel's Santa is not the genuine article, and a fight ensues between them. He is arrested and sentenced 24 hours in jail. Walter reluctantly bails him out and takes him to a pediatrician for a DNA test. Once it is proven that he is in fact Walter's son, he takes him home to meet his stepmother, Emily (Mary Steenburgen) and half-brother, Michael (Daniel Tay). Walter is clearly put off by his immature, innocent behavior (such as slathering his spaghetti with maple syrup and M&M's and not seeming to understand that Walter isn't interested in playing with him), but Emily insists that they take care of him until he "recovers".

Buddy befriends Michael after the former defeats a gang of bullies single-handedly in a snowball fight, and Michael encourages him to ask Jovie out. The next day, Walter reluctantly takes him to work with him, and uses his naïveté to send him down to the mailroom. He gets drunk on a coworker's whiskey, thinking it's syrup, and ends up throwing a party in there. That night, he has a date with Jovie. Walter, meanwhile, has been trying to save his floundering business by hiring the temperamental best-selling writer Miles Finch. When the vertically-challenged Finch arrives, Buddy innocently thinks he is an elf. Miles attacks Buddy after being pushed to his limit and storms out of the conference room without signing a deal with Walter's company. Walter is so angry over this setback that he yells at Buddy to "get out of his life" as well as he states that he doesn't care that he's an elf, that he's crazy, and that he's his son. Buddy, now afraid of Walter's shadow, writes his message to his father, and then he runs away with hurt feelings.

Meanwhile, Michael sees Buddy's written message, and he bursts in on Walter's board meeting to tell him frantically that Buddy is gone. He manages to convince him to put his family above his job for the first time, and his boss fires Walter from his job because of leaving the business meeting on him with Michael. Buddy looks up and sees Santa's sleigh crash in Central Park. He finds Santa, who explains that he lost the sleigh's engine and that the last bit of Christmas spirit on the Clausometer (which had powered the sleigh previously) had gone. He convinces Buddy to help him fix the sleigh. Walter and Michael find Buddy in Central Park as he locates the sleigh's engine. He takes them to meet Santa, who reveals to Michael that belief in him (manifested in knowing that he is bringing people what they want for Christmas) can make his sleigh fly. Michael therefore steals his list and reads it in front of the TV cameras now gathered outside the park, so that people all across New York City believe conclusively in him. The Central Park Rangers begin to chase his sleigh while Buddy is still trying to reattach the engine, and it is one point lost.

However, Jovie, remembering what Buddy had told her about how singing is the best way to spread the joy of Christmas, manages to overcome her shyness and get the sleigh in the air by the power of Christmas spirit when she leads the crowd in singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," with even Walter eventually joining in. Later, he starts his own publishing company with the first book released being titled Elf, an account of Buddy's adventures. Buddy and Jovie also marry and have a daughter named Susie and are shown to visit Papa Elf and the North Pole periodically.

Spoilers end here.

Cast

• Buddy Hobbs - Will Ferrell
• Walter Hobbs - James Caan
• Jovie - Zooey Deschanel
• Emily Hobbs - Mary Steenburgen
• Santa Claus- Edward Asner
• Papa Elf - Bob Newhart
• Michael - Daniel Tay

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was released in November 2003 in the USA and in October 2005 in the UK.

1. "Pennies from Heaven" - Louis Prima
2. "Sleigh Ride" - Ella Fitzgerald and the Frank De Vol Orchestra
3. "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" - Lena Horne
4. "Sleigh Ride/Santa Claus Party" - Ferrante and Teicher/Les Baxter
5. "Baby, It's Cold Outside" - Leon Redbone/Zooey Deschanel
6. "Jingle Bells" - Jim Reeves
7. "The Nutcracker Suite" - Brian Setzer
8. "Christmas Island" - Leon Redbone
9. "Santa Baby" - Eartha Kitt/Henri René and His Orchestra
10. "Winter Wonderland" - Leon Redbone
11. "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" - Eddy Arnold
12. "Nothing from Nothing" - Billy Preston

Releases

DVD (2004)

Blu-ray (2008)

Collector's Edition DVD (2010)

71hbhpoE2uL. AA1135 .jpg

Collector's Edition Blu-ray (2010)

Broadway adaptation

On November 14, 2010, a musical version of the film opened on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. It ran through the holidays in a limited engagement.

Trivia

• A small store in Maine received a licensing fee from the producers after it was learned that they had owned the then-abandoned "Gimbels" name.
• Much of the filming of this movie takes place in New York City with the exception of the exterior scenes for Gimbels, which were done in Vancouver, British Columbia.
• The director, Jon Favreau, made a cameo appearance in the film as the Hobbs's family doctor.
• Jim Carrey was originally cast to play Buddy, but passed on it, giving Ferrell the Hollywood breakthrough role, after originally starring on Saturday Night Live.
• Ed Asner previously played Santa Claus in The Story of Santa Claus.

External links

• Elf on the Internet Movie Database