First time catching 'Elf' This year, how I hadnt seen it up to this point? *Shrugs and gestures wildly around at the state of things* but...it is what it is.
A simple enough story, a baby accidentally taken by Santa one year while on the usual christmas rounds is kept at the North Pole and raised to be an Elf by the other Elves...But he kind of sucks at being an Elf, so decides to try and track down his family who live in New York city. 'Buddy's' mother passed away some time ago and his fathers on the 'Naughty List' as a corner cutting book publisher who's a scrooge in every sense of the word.
As you can imagine the naive Buddy tracking him down leads to all manner of funny happenings and events. While Buddy along the way learns about 'human' ways of living and tries to raise the spirits of his step brother, whos a preteen going into his angst phase, the workers at a local toystore with whome he begins to slowly fall in love with one of the staff by the name of 'Jovie'
In short? I kinda liked this one. Its gentle, it isnt exactly a stretch for Will Ferrell (who really isnt helping his case here that he only really has 2 character types)...Admittedly he plays the character well...but yeh.
The plot is a pretty basic clean cut 'raise the holiday spirits' picture, and I think it succeeds in that, the tone is silly, gross out, but well intentioned and the characters while a little one note, do eventually have a bit more complexity that ultimately won me over.
Running against it however, some of the humour is low standard, even by christmas movie levels. and im kind of on the fence about the 'autism' coding in this thing...I dont think they set out to be malicious by any stretch. But given that very serious conversations are still being had/debated about the infantalisation of autistic people in media...I dont think this is a particularly 'glowing' representation...and the people who've used the arguements of 'BUDDY'S FROM A DIFFERENT CULTURE! HE'S NOT AUTISTIC, ITS JUST HOW HE IS!' or 'BUDDY IS A POSITIVE ROLE MODEL! SO WHATS THE PROBLEM!?' to me? sound like the same folks who would say that 'Lolicon' is okay in some cases because; 'she's a 4500 year old witch who just so HAPPENS to look like a 6 year old kid! SO ITS FINE!' Ugh...I just feel this may be a growing sticking point for some as neurodiversity becomes a more prominent societal conversation...
I also think it kind of loses a bit of steam around the end of the 2nd act, heading into the 3rd. The first 2 acts had a solid narrative arc of Buddy being established alongside the Elves and Buddies adventures in New York, eventually finding his father and sowing the seeds of change with his rambunctious runaround antics. But around the time Buddy decides he just isnt fit for the 'human world' the humour and pacing slows right right down as I think the scriptwriters realised they handt *properly* set up a redemption and recovery arc for Buddy and that, his Dad just accepting him for who he is out of the blue, wouldnt be a particularly engaging way to end the film.
So they kind of cobble together some 'Christmas Spirit' malarkey on the fly as a mini problem to give Buddy that redemption AND to make his Dad realise his son isnt completely useless...but they dont really tie that off properly? They just sort of jump cut to an undisclosed point in the future where everythings now working perfectly fine. Its like the film spent an hour making an intricate hot fudge sundae, then in the last 20 minutes it scrapped it in favour of a push pop, but then dangled a photograph of the finished sundae in our faces while telling us how good it is...I dunno...for some people that ending may have been enough, I felt it was a bit too flakey.
Those aside. I think the jokes are kind of mid, but there were a few laugh out loud moments to be had, I really loved the directional choices here (the decision to mix live action with Rankin/Bass-esq stop motion animation for some characters and set dressing in the North Pole segments were delightful) its a very festive looking and feeling movie (New York is astoundingly christmassy to me)
The cine is decent enough, though maybe a little basic once the action shifts to New York. The scoring seems to basically be jukebox hits intermixed with a Jim Reeves 'Public domain friendly' remix of 'Magic moments' The cast do the job jsut about...this is...fine. I can absolutely see why kids love this, I can equally see why grown ups think this is a welcome 'Christmas movie classic' hell...I'll happily watch it again in future. its fun. But its not perfect, and those problems are ultimately what hamstrung it a bit for me.
Put it this way, im glad I finally got around to checking it out, but if it vanished tomorrow completely, I wouldnt miss it.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/elf/
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