Selfish elves, a Santa kidnapping, and a candy-fueled creeper. We love "Elf," but there are a few things you won't be able to ignore next time you watch it.
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00:00Selfish elves, a Santa kidnapping, and a candy-fueled creeper. We love Elf,
00:06but there are a few things you won't be able to ignore next time you watch it.
00:11At its heart, Elf is a classic fish-out-of-water comedy, but with the added twist being that the
00:16fish, Buddy the Elf, doesn't fit in back in the water, either. The movie's opening scenes
00:22show us some great physical comedy as the six-foot-three Will Ferrell
00:26squeezes himself into elf-sized showers and beds. But here's the thing. Why don't the elves just,
00:32you know, make him a bed? One of the things that makes the movie feel heartwarming and Christmassy
00:38is that the other elves up at Santa's workshop are generally pretty nice to Buddy. They even
00:43take time to reassure him that he's got his own special talents when he starts to feel like he
00:47doesn't fit in. And even if they get frustrated behind his back, it's clear that they care about
00:52him. So why in the 30 years that he's been there haven't they made the slightest adjustment to
00:58their housing situation so that he's not destroying his spine every night? It's not like it would take
01:03them that long. Building things is literally all the elves do, and a king-sized bed frame and
01:08mattress surely wouldn't take as much time to cobble together as, say, building a PlayStation
01:135 from scratch. He's not even the only one there who needs human-sized furniture, since Santa Claus
01:19also lives there and has been doing so for about 1,500 years. Even if the elves aren't the ones
01:25who made his furniture, just order another mattress and put it on the floor. It's not great,
01:30but it's better than sleeping with all your limbs hanging off the bed.
01:34The odd thing about Buddy the elf is that he never seems to notice that he's roughly
01:38three times taller than everyone he knows. Well, almost everyone. The only exception is Santa Claus.
01:45Buddy's still taller than Santa, but not to the extent that it is with the other elves.
01:50If anything, Buddy should probably assume that he's a Santa, or at least some other kind of human.
01:55The only reason that Buddy thinks he's an elf at all is that after accidentally kidnapping him
02:00when Buddy was an infant, Santa pulls the very Un-Santa-like move of keeping him and handing
02:06him off to the elves. This, by the way, is not what you should do if you ever find a baby.
02:11Buddy's naivete is at the core of the film, but there's a fine line between his earnest,
02:16good-natured belief that a random diner really did perfect the world's best cup of coffee,
02:21and the kind of oblivious ignorance of just not being able to put simple clues together.
02:26You did it! Congratulations! World's best cup of coffee! Great job, everybody!
02:34You'd think that if you can figure out how to build 85 Etch-A-Sketches in a single day,
02:39you'd be a little bit better at putting things together.
02:42"...past the sea of swirly, twirly gumdrops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel."
02:50This is going to sound pretty nitpicky for a movie where we're willing to accept that
02:55Santa Claus can fly around the world in a single night giving all the good children presents,
02:59but the fact that Buddy walks from the North Pole to Manhattan is a little ridiculous.
03:04There are a lot of reasons for that, primarily the fact that it's a straight shot of about
03:093,400 miles from Santa's workshop to Manhattan. Even if we're willing to accept that the iceberg
03:15he floats off on takes him down to Canada, that still leaves him in the Nunavut with 2,900 miles
03:20left to go. We'll give you that his elf clothes are magical and able to keep him warm at the North
03:25Pole and below, but still. No matter how hyped up he is on maple syrup and candy canes, that's a
03:31long and potentially, or let's be real here, almost certainly fatal journey for someone who's
03:37completely unprepared for it. Now, here's why this isn't as much of a nitpick as it seems like.
03:43The scene sticks out because this is a movie with Santa in it. The guy has a magic flying sleigh
03:49that can cover 212 million miles in a single night. Sure, he's a busy guy around the holidays,
03:54but are we really meant to believe that Santa Claus can't take 0.4 seconds out of his day so
03:59that he doesn't have to deal with a singing penguin finding a dead body in the candy cane
04:04forest after the spring thaw?
04:06You like sugar, huh?
04:08Is there sugar in syrup?
04:10Yes.
04:11Then yes!
04:12One of the biggest sources of comedy throughout Elf is Buddy's ridiculously candy-centric diet.
04:18After all, he hails from a land of Christmas cheer that was inspired by the Rankin-Bass
04:23stop-motion specials of the 60s. So he grew up on a steady diet of candy canes and describes
04:28the North Pole's four food groups as
04:30"...candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup."
04:35Of course, that means Buddy should be straight-up dead.
04:38You probably figured this out for yourself in the days after Halloween when you were a kid,
04:42but a diet that consists entirely of candy isn't just unhealthy,
04:47it's also a great way to get type 2 diabetes. Sure, you could explain it away by saying that
04:52all the candy at the North Pole is suffused with Christmas magic that makes it delicious
04:57and nutritious. But after he comes to New York, Buddy keeps up his standard habits,
05:01drowning a plate of spaghetti with an entire bottle of maple syrup,
05:05and washing it down by slamming an entire two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola.
05:09In fact, the few things we see him eat in the movie that aren't candy are a bottle of booze
05:14and a jar full of cotton balls. Fun fact, in real life, those cotton balls were actually cotton
05:19candy. If you need any evidence that wolfing down that much sugar was a bad idea, look no further
05:25than Will Ferrell himself. In interviews about the film since its release, he's talked about
05:30how he lost sleep while the movie was being filmed thanks to the constant sugar intake.
05:35Multiply that by 30-plus years' worth of sugar-coated meals, and you've got health
05:39problems that go way beyond a little insomnia, and into the territory of having your heart
05:44explode while chugging maple syrup.
05:47Did you sleep okay last night?
05:48Great! I got a full 40 minutes.
05:52Just five years away from Iron Man, Jon Favreau was the man who directed Elf,
05:56and he even has a small part as the Hobbes family's friendly physician.
06:00He also provides the voice of the North Pole's resident Narwhal.
06:04Bye, buddy. Hope you find your dad.
06:07And while we're talking about Favreau's doctor, we'd be remiss if we didn't cover what might be
06:12the worst medical decision ever committed to film. After performing a DNA test to confirm that,
06:18yes, Buddy is in fact Walter's biological son, the doctor advises Walter to take Buddy home to
06:24meet his wife and son in hopes that he'll eventually come to terms with the situation
06:29and drop the whole Elf thing and move on. Obviously, that all works out for Buddy and
06:34the Hobbes family, but by any measure, this is some truly terrible advice.
06:38Both Walter and the doctor are operating under the assumption that Buddy is extremely delusional.
06:44Any medical professional worth his stethoscope would most likely suggest that they get Buddy
06:48some immediate treatment, psychiatric or otherwise, before his disconnect with
06:52reality leads to more violence. That's right. More violence.
06:57The scene with the blood test happens directly after Walter bails Buddy out of jail after he
07:02assaults a department store Santa at Gimbel's. In other words, the doctor is confronted with
07:07a delusional man with a very recent history of violence, and his solution to this problem is to
07:13take him home to your wife and kid. Here's hoping the first thing the Hobbes family does
07:17after the credits roll is get themselves a new general practitioner.
07:21"...your father, well, he's on the naughty list."
07:27No!
07:28The driving conflict of Elf is that Walter Hobbes, Buddy's long-lost human father,
07:33has landed himself squarely on the naughty list. The reason? Well, in addition to just being a
07:38fairly unpleasant person, and all those murders he did in The Godfather, Walter has been neglecting
07:44his family and focusing too much on his work. This is the plot to plenty of Christmas movies
07:49about learning how to love your family more effectively under the boot heel of consumerism.
07:54But there's something different about Walter's story. He's genuinely terrible at his job.
08:00Normally, the person in this kind of plot who's obsessing over their work is at least
08:03successful in that arena, which makes it more effective when they have to choose what's really
08:08important. Walter's got plenty of money. That apartment at Central Park West doesn't come cheap,
08:12but as far as the work goes, he's hardly a success. His company's floundering,
08:17and their downturn is a direct result of decisions that he made — or,
08:21rather, due to decisions that he didn't make.
08:23Despite filling the role of the workaholic who spends too much time at the office,
08:28Walter doesn't actually seem to care about anything that he's doing at work,
08:32to the point of approving a proof of a book that was missing two pages.
08:36Even the most inept employee would notice if he was initialing two gigantic blank pages,
08:42so the simple fact is that Walter just doesn't care. That raises a pretty grim question, though.
08:47If he's neglecting his family for work, but he's not actually doing any work,
08:51is he just sitting there, taking as much time away from his wife and son as he can
08:55so that he can stare off into space and contemplate oblivion? That is dark.
09:00I like it. I like it."
09:05The major drama at the climax of the film centers around whether Santa's sleigh is
09:09going to be able to fly without the engine that's been keeping it going all these years.
09:14See, without the engine, the sleigh has to rely entirely on the magic of Christmas
09:18cheer to power it around the world. And according to the Clausometer,
09:22there's just not enough Christmas spirit to do the job. But that doesn't make sense.
09:26This is a world where Santa Claus is 100% actually factually real, with a toy factory
09:33at the North Pole staffed by cheerful singing elves, a talking snowman, and everything that
09:37goes along with him. He brings presents to the good children all over the world, which means
09:42that there's no disillusionment or disappointment from kids who didn't get what they wanted on
09:46Christmas morning. We also know from the movie that getting a present does in fact increase
09:51your Christmas spirit, as Michael, Walter's other son, boosts the Clausometer a little bit
09:57when he gets the skateboard he's always wanted. So if Santa and the elves have been doing their
10:02job, and as far as we know, they have, then there should be more than enough Christmas spirit to go
10:06around just from that, let alone all the general feel-good sentiments of peace on Earth, goodwill,
10:11hot chocolate, and so on. One of the things that makes Elf such a favorite around the holidays
10:17is that it's an almost relentlessly cheerful film without getting too sugary sweet.
10:22Buddy's spaghetti notwithstanding. In fact, the closest it gets to anything you'd call
10:27dark would be the depiction of the Santa-hating Central Park Rangers at the end. Oh, and that
10:33one part where Buddy commits felony assault on an innocent man for the crime of dressing up
10:36as Santa Claus. But even if Buddy's sudden temper is slightly out of character, that all makes
10:41perfect sense in the context of the movie. What happens after, however, seems like a stretch.
10:46Since the original Gimbal's Santa is no longer available, the toy department's manager has to
10:52fill in, and frankly, that's ridiculous. If you've ever been to Macy's around Christmastime,
10:57then you already know that these stores take their Santa setup very seriously.
11:01It's a lot more complicated than just one dude sitting on a big chair asking kids what they
11:05want for Christmas. The Gimbals we see in the movie might not be as dedicated to it as Macy's,
11:10of course. Historically, the real-life Gimbals was Macy's competitor until shutting down in 1987,
11:17with their rivalry cementing itself into Christmas movie history as a plot point in the original
11:22Miracle on 34th Street. Still, the idea that a store that big wouldn't have at least a couple
11:28of backup Santas is somehow more difficult to believe than the flying reindeer.
11:33Buddy's romance with Jovi, a young woman working as an elf at Gimbal's,
11:37played in a star-making turn by Zooey Deschanel, ends up being pretty sweet,
11:42but it has a rocky start. Most people don't wind up going on dates with strangers who sneak up on
11:47them in the shower, no matter how nice they are about your singing afterwards. Considering that
11:52Elf has a runtime of just over 90 minutes, it makes sense that things have to move pretty
11:56fast to get everything wrapped up by the time the credits roll. Still, Jovi's awfully quick
12:01to forgive Buddy for creeping up on her in the shower, especially since the next two interactions
12:06she has with him involve him beating up the guy playing Santa Claus and then telling her that his
12:11tongue swells up around her and asking if she wants to go eat food.
12:15I feel really warm when I am around you."
12:19The fact that she goes out with him at all, let alone ends up in happy elf-in-matrimony
12:23after it's all said and done, is, well, it's a Christmas miracle. The weirdest part of all of
12:28this might be one that Jovi would have no way of knowing, but that we in the audience can peg as
12:34what might be the only lie Buddy tells in the whole movie. When she asks if he was spying on
12:39her in the shower, he replies,
12:41"...I didn't know you were naked."
12:43This seems plausible, given Buddy's naive nature. The thing is, he definitely knew she was in the
12:49shower, and we actually see Buddy showering in an elf-sized tub earlier in the movie.
12:54Of course, he did have his hat on at the time, so maybe elves are a rare class of never-nudes.
12:59"...Oh, I'm sorry. I know I need you to be completely undressed."
13:03"...I am completely undressed."
13:05There are any number of ways to tell a child that they are adopted, though perhaps no worse
13:10way than for them to overhear it from two co-workers bad-mouthing their Etch-a-Sketch
13:14production output. Buddy learns the hard way that he's not an elf, and while you might reasonably
13:19expect him to come to that conclusion after a decade or two, it's also not unreasonable to
13:24expect Papa Elf and Santa to have had that conversation directly, saving Buddy a bundle
13:29of unnecessary trauma. Santa's judgment in regards to the whole Buddy situation becomes
13:34even more suspect considering the fact that he's apparently had all the information needed to
13:39reunite Buddy with his father for years. It would be one thing if Buddy were simply an anonymous
13:44orphan who crawled into Santa's sack one year. In that case, it would make a certain amount
13:49of sense for Santa to take the human baby in and raise it at the North Pole.
13:52But Santa also knows the name of Buddy's mother, Susan Wells, the circumstances of her death,
13:58the name of his still-living father, Walter Moss, Walter's job and the location of his office,
14:04and the fact that Walter is on the naughty list. He only reveals this information when his hand
14:08is forced, as Buddy inadvertently discovers the truth. While it's hard to hate on Santa Claus,
14:13all of this points to a serious lapse of judgment on the big guy's part.
14:18The scene featuring future Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage as hot-shot children's
14:23book author Miles Fench is cringe-inducing, but purposely so. Walter has bribed Miles to come
14:29into the office and help his clueless in-house writers with a new book pitch. He's hoping this
14:34pitch will be the thing that gets Walter back in good with his boss and save his job. But before
14:39Miles can get into his potential storyline, Buddy barges into the meeting and mistakes the man for
14:45an elf. Miles takes offense at Buddy's sincere excitement to see a fellow elf as a crack about
14:50his height, and while he tries to keep his cool, eventually Buddy's insults become too much to
14:55bear. Miles runs across the boardroom table and dropkicks him. That all makes sense, even if,
15:02in illustrating Buddy's insensitivity, the film itself gets a little insensitive.
15:06What doesn't make much sense is how no one else in this scene — not Walter,
15:11his writers, or his secretary — does anything to break up the fight. As Miles chokes Buddy
15:16to the ground and breaks every lighting fixture and piece of glassware in the room along the way,
15:20they all just sit there, apparently frozen in shock, until the scene ends with Walter
15:25angrily disowning Buddy. Every year, it seems that someone on the internet discovers and is
15:31newly horrified by the scene in which Buddy, banished to the Greenway Press mailroom for
15:37irritating Walter, makes friends with — and accidentally gets day-drunk with — a worker
15:42played by Mark Atchison. As they recline on a pair of rolling carts full of padded envelopes,
15:47declaring themselves best friends, Mailroom Guy — as he is credited — laments the direction
15:52that his life has taken. He just goes with the flow, but now he needs to get out of the flow.
15:57I'm 26 years old, I got nothing to show for it.
15:59You're young. You're so young.
16:02Atchison was in fact 46 years old when the film was released, and while he may appear relatively
16:07youthful for a 46-year-old, he makes for an alarmingly craggy, gravel-voiced 26-year-old.
16:14Mailroom Guy works in a chaotic processing room with no source of natural light,
16:18he drinks from a half-pint of hard liquor on the job, and only has the job thanks to
16:22a prison work-release program. So the impact of the gag makes for a worthy suspension of disbelief.