Twenty years on, this has become a canonical Christmas comedy favourite. A jovial seasonal treat, from director Jon Favreau and screenwriter David Berenbaum, Elf was reportedly inspired by Tom Hanks in Big, but took on a life of its own once Will Ferrell became involved, improvising many of his lines and endowing the whole thing with a more ironised manic energy.
The film’s old-fashioned charm and sweet-natured Yuletide spirit has held up, although it interestingly seems attractive now more for these softer-edged qualities than for the straight-ahead SNL-type Will Ferrell comedy that it seemed to promise back in 2003, when Ferrell’s presence led us all to expect (and often get) something more vinegary and satirical, like Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa.
Ferrell plays the grotesquely huge elf called Buddy in his green coat and pointy hat, far bigger than all the other elves because, in fact, he is human; he was a poignantly unwanted orphan baby that crept into Santa’s present sack and was accidentally carried back to the North Pole as a stowaway. Santa (played by Ed Asner) had no choice but to employ him as one of his own little helpers, a job for which he is horribly unsuited; Bob Newhart is droll as the senior elf who volunteers to raise this very “special” elf child.
