DVD Review: Elf

This film, released in 2003, is a wonderful holiday picture. Will Ferrell stars as Buddy the Elf, who crawls into Santa Claus' (Ed Asner) bag at an orphanage and winds up at the North Pole where he is adopted by Papa Elf (played by Bob Newhart). It is soon realized that Buddy is not a true elf, but a human raised by elves. After finding out his true parentage, a Walter Hobbs (played by James Caan) he journeys to New York City to meet and reconcile with his biological father. With his innocent nature he has several misadventures, more particularly at Gimbel's, where he is mistaken for an elf worker and put to work at the "North Pole" and meets a worker named Jovie (played by Zooey Deschanel) who he is enchanted by and falls in love with. He then goes to his father's apartment, meeting his half-mother (Mary Steenburgen) and his half-brother. He stays there until he is taken to work by Walter, where he gets drunk for the first time. He then has many adventures along the way, including running away from home until he meets Santa who has crash-landed in Central Park. I will not give away too much more, but it is a satisfying conclusion, including a spoof of a well-known cryptozoological piece of footage. I give Elf 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.