Cover of "Elf [Blu-ray]"Cover of Elf [Blu-ray]

One of the biggest surprises in 2003 was without a doubt Elf which I wanted to classify as a trivial and silly children’s film. Here’s the plot:

The film stars Will Ferrell as the film’s central character “Buddy”, and Ed Asner as Santa Claus. As an infant in a New York City orphanage, Buddy had crawled into Santa Claus’s bag on Christmas Eve, and Santa unwittingly brought him back to the North Pole. Not knowing to whom the child belonged, the elves decided that he would be raised by them and that it would never be disclosed to him that he was really a human. However, when Buddy overhears the other elves talking about the fact that he is human, he goes to his adoptive father Papa Elf, for advice.

Papa Elf acknowledges that Buddy is, indeed, a human, and tells him the entire story of how he came to be raised by elves. Most important, he tells Buddy about his human father, Walter Hobbs, who lives in New York City. Buddy soon decides to head off on a quest to find his father, where much comedy ensues from the childlike and wholesome Buddy the Elf being a fish-out-of-water.

The movie has a simple story which constantly strives to be understandable and logical and is thus interesting not only for children but for adults. There are some fairly clichéd characters which quickly gain the sympathy of the audience. The gags convince not only by number but also by quality. So this film is a great pleasure for children and adults alike with jokes for every generation.