Professor Pfinklepfunder's $1 Sunday Films
Directed by Jon Favreau
With Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel
Rated PG, 97 minutes, Blu-ray
It can be difficult to pinpoint why a movie becomes a classic, but Elf has a recipe that is pretty easy to follow. It fiddles with a standard fish-out-of-snow plot while walking the tightrope of earnestness and humor while also holding a giant Santa sack of naivety and sophistication that befits a Pixar film. When you add in the regularized annual viewing that comes with being a Christmas movie and let it bake for a couple of decades, and you have a classic. Buddy the Elf (Will Ferrell) is a Moses in a Santa sack, a human accidentally ending up in the North Pole where he grows up (and up and up) among elves. When it comes time to reintegrate Buddy the Elf into human society, his zeal for Christmas (and life (and sugar)) becomes a beacon of hope.