Related Reviews

Will Ferrell

• Semi-Pro (2008)
• Blades of Glory (2007)
• Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
• The Producers (2005)
• Bewitched (2005)
• Kicking and Screaming (2005)
• Melinda and Melinda (2005)
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
• Old School (2003)
• Step Brothers (2008)

James Caan

• City of Ghosts (2003)
• A Bridge Too Far (1977)
• The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration (2008)

Zooey Deschanel

• Surf's Up (2007)
• Failure to Launch (2006)
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
• YES (2005)
• All the Real Girls (2003)
• The Happening (2008)

Jon Favreau

• The Break-Up (2006)
• Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)
• Wimbledon (2004)
• Daredevil (2003)
• Iron Man (2008)
• Rudy (1993)

This Film On

• Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
• Rotten Tomatoes

Elf

(2003)

90 min. New Line. Director: Jon Favreau. Cast: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Bob Newhart, Edward Asner.

In the hands of Will Ferrell, Elf beats a hackneyed script into submission and cajoles smiles and chuckles from obvious material. Parents can freely regard Elf as an essentially guiltless pleasure for the kiddie set, though other discriminating adults (especially those resistant to Ferrell's comedic charms) will want to think twice.

Ferrell plays Buddy, a human orphan who crawls into Santa's bag one night and winds up raised by elves at the North Pole. Narrating Buddy's story is his adoptive father, an elf played by the great Bob Newhart (sadly, screenwriter David Berenbaum forgot to write him any good lines); Ed Asner plays a rosy-cheeked Santa with the expected gusto. Buddy gets it in his head--once told he's human--to seek out his biological father in the great big city (New York, with its department stores product-placed).

In a brilliant stroke, director Jon Favreau (Made) cast Caan as Buddy's dad, a Scroogy children's book publisher. Caan quickly reminds us of his skillful comedic slow-burn, eventually tossing up his arms in exasperation at each of Buddy's unstoppable infractions against Caan's peace on earth. In adherance to formula, Buddy also meets a love interest (Zooey Deschanel) when he inadvertantly finds himself working in a department store, and a kid to take under his wing (Daniel Tay) when he follows his father home.

Ferrell has what may be his funniest film role, playing Buddy as an inexhaustible naïf bubbling over with exasperating good cheer and clumsy good intentions. The Saturday Night Live star's bouts of physical comedy--as well as pleasantly distracting cameos by the likes of Andy Richter, Kyle Gass, and The Station Agent's Peter Dinklage as a star children's author--spackle over the bland plot enough to keep Elf moving, until the film succumbs to overwrought third-act plot machinations. Elf may not be a Red-Ryder rifle under the tree, but it's not exactly a lump of coal in the stocking, either.