A baby climbs into Santa's sack and accidentally ends up at the North Pole where he is raised by elves and put to work in the toy workshop.
His name is Buddy and, when he grows so big it's clear he's human, he feels compelled to leave the Christmassy life he loves and travel to New York to find his real dad, who's on the naughty list.
Yuck! On paper it sounds like a stinking cheese ball Christmas humiliator. But thanks to Will Ferrell's hilariously endearing man-child performance Elf is tear-jerkingly brilliant. Not only the greatest Christmas movie of all time but one of the greatest comedies of all time. Elf has dozens and dozens of great scenes. The jumping on the tree, the fight with fake Santa, the central park snowball war, the mail room booze up, Zooey Deschanel singing in the shower and best of all the boardroom scrap with Peter Dinklage ("Call me elf one more time ...").
Every part of Elf works, including the music. Composer John Debney has bottled the entire Christmas spirit into the theme. It's a happy, soaring, yuletide blast in the heart. Elf has laugh after laugh after laugh and it all leads up to a powerful emotional pay off. When Santa's broken-down sleigh takes flight thanks to Jovie, Walter and all the kids in New York getting up the courage to sing, the eyes start to well up. Then the theme kicks in and tears of joy just pour down your face. It feels so good.
I have always loved Christmas but I used find I couldn't ramp up the season like I felt I should. I found it hard to get maximum Christmas joy pumping through my veins.
