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Elf
Elf film poster
Directed by	Jon Favreau
Produced by	Jon Berg Todd Komarnicki Shauna Robertson
Written by	David Berenbaum
Starring	Will Ferrell James Caan Zooey Deschanel Mary Steenburgen with Edward Asner and Bob Newhart
Music by	John Debney
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	November 7, 2003 (USA)
Running time	93 min.
Language	English
Budget	$33,000,000 US (est.)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Elf is a 2003 Christmas-themed comedy film directed by Jon Favreau and released in the US on November 7, 2003.

It stars Will Ferrell as the film's central character "Buddy". As an infant in a New York orphanage, Buddy had crawled into Santa's bag on Christmas Eve, and Saint Nick 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 for advice.

Buddy's adoptive father 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, which leads to all kinds of humorous trouble.

Contents 1 Plot synopsis 2 Trivia 3 Selected cast and crew 4 Sequel 5 References 6 External links

Elf begins with narration by Papa Elf (Bob Newhart), explaining the only three jobs available to an elf: making shoes for a cobbler; baking cookies inside of trees; and working in Santa's workshop. He also explains Buddy's presence at the North Pole — as an infant in an orphanage, he crawled into Santa's sack of toys one Christmas Eve and was accidentally taken to the North Pole. Santa (Edward Asner) decides to allow the child, called "Buddy" after a label on his diaper, to be raised by Papa Elf, who has no children of his own.

As Buddy (Will Ferrell) grows, his height and poor toymaking skills raise awkward questions that his adoptive father continually waves away. Papa Elf also shows Buddy the jet engine he created in the 1960s to assist Santa's sleigh, which had run on the power of the Christmas spirit, until people began to doubt Santa's existence. After a string of accidents in which Buddy's non-elfness becomes obvious, Papa Elf finally breaks the news that he was adopted: his birth parents fell in love with each other when they were high school students in the 1970s, and nine months later, Buddy was born, in 1973. His beautiful mother, Susan Wells, who later died, placed him for adoption at the orphanage. Buddy's now 46-year-old father had never been aware of his existence.

Buddy is overwhelmed by the news, and with encouragement from a snowman (voiced by jazz/blues singer Leon Redbone), he sets off to New York City to find his biological father, Walter Hobbes (James Caan). Walter is on the naughty list for being a cold and heartless children's book publishing executive.

When Buddy finally reaches New York City, he plays around the city, learning about human culture. Papa Elf told Buddy his father works at the Empire State Building, the tallest building in New York. When he finally met Walter, Buddy was excited to see him, but Walter had no idea who he was and had him thrown out.

Buddy finds a store called Gimbels and decides to explore it. When the manager (Faizon Love) finds him, he mistakes him for an employee who has been goofing off. He takes Buddy to the upper-level toy store called "The North Pole", but Buddy protests that it is not the actual North Pole. Buddy soon meets a beautiful employee named Jovie (Zooey Deschanel) and befriends her. When the manager says that Santa is coming, Buddy assumes that the real Santa, whom he of course knows, is coming and becomes very excited.

After Gimbels closes for the night, Buddy stays to decorate "The North Pole" for Santa's arrival. When the employees return, Buddy's boss fears someone is plotting to steal his job. When the store Santa arrives, Buddy spots him as a fake and gets into a fight around "The North Pole," destroying much of the decoration. He is fired and then arrested.

Meanwhile, Walter is still working at his publishing company. He receives a gift from Buddy, he gets a card with a picture of Walter and his ex-girlfriend, Susan Wells (Buddy's deceased mother). Walter soon gets a call from the police, saying that his son got arrested. He soon goes to the police station to get Buddy and tells him how he got the picture. Following the administration of a paternity test, a doctor suggests that Walter take Buddy into his home to help him adjust to his abandonment issues and begin to live a normal life, at which point he'll be able to move out and move on.

Buddy moves in with Walter and his wife, Emily (Mary Steenburgen), and their 10-year-old son, Michael (Daniel Tay). Buddy decorates the apartment and all he eats his spaghetti with syrup poured on it, claiming the four elf food groups are candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup. Michael initially rejects Buddy's attempts to form a relationship with him, but they become friends after Buddy's expert skills at snowball fighting help his half-brother defend himself against bullies. They run to Gimbels to play around, and Michael explains to Buddy what a jerk Walter is. Buddy and Michael run into Jovie back at "The North Pole". Michael tells Buddy that he should ask Jovie out on a date. Buddy soon takes Michael's advice.

Meanwhile, Emily is talking to Walter. She says that Walter should bond with Buddy more by taking him to work. They made Buddy wear a suit and he was starting to annoy Walter, and soon gets Buddy a job working in the mailroom at the Empire State Building. Buddy makes new friends there and holds a dance party.

The date finally arrives for Buddy; he picks up Jovie at her apartment and he tells her how he has fun around the city. Jovie takes Buddy to Rockefeller Center and decide to skate. Then, they kissed.

Meanwhile at Walter's job, a famous short author named Miles Finch (Peter Dinklage) comes to the Empire State building for an important meeting. Buddy soon interupts the meeting to tell Walter about his date with Jovie. When Buddy finds Miles, he mistakes him for an elf, and Miles think that Buddy was insulting him. Miles soon beats up Buddy and leaves the meeting in anger. Walter gets furious with Buddy and yells at him to get out of his life.

Buddy gets really sad and runs away. When Michael comes home, he finds a note Buddy made in etch a sketch. Michael then runs to the Empire State Building to get Walter, who is in a meeting on Christmas Eve with his boss. When Michael finds Walter, he tells him that he was a big jerk to not look for Buddy. Soon, Walter feels bad and attempts to rescheule the meeting, but his boss would not let him. So, Walter walked out of the meeting which resulted in his firing.

When Buddy walks on the Queensboro Bridge to decide where to go, he sees Santa's Sleigh, falling from the sky and lands in Central Park. Buddy runs there to find Santa. He finds the sleigh with no scratch, but it can't fly. Buddy meets up with Santa. Santa says that no one has Christmas Spirit anymore, and another way how the sleigh flys is by an engine, which broke off when the sleigh crashed. Santa tells Buddy to find it.

News crews get wind of the story that the sleigh has crashed into Central Park. Meanwhile, Walter and Michael were still looking for Buddy, and they find the sleigh's engine. Buddy finds both of them and the engine. Buddy takes them to see Santa. Buddy was working on the engine, and Michael gets a huffboard from Santa, which give the sleigh some Christmas Spirit. Soon, a group called The Central Park Rangers are sent to get Santa. Michael took Santa's Christmas List and tries to get people to believe in Santa. Walter tries to distract the Rangers, but he fails.

When Jovie sees Buddy on TV, she runs to Central Park and finds Michael with the News crew trying to get people to believe in Santa Claus. Michael tells Jovie everything, and remembers what Buddy said ("The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear"). Then Emily arrives after seeing Michael on TV. Soon Walter comes, wearing Santa's red coat after trying to distract the rangers. Jovie climbs on top of an old car, she sings "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to everyone, and then everyone decides to sing along.

Buddy is still working on the engine, and the rangers are getting close, but Santa decides to set off and have Buddy work on it on the way. After Buddy fixes the engine, it breaks down again. But there is still one way to fly, a full tank of Christmas Spirit. The tank fills up because the crowd sings Christmas carols. After Walter finally sings, the sleigh now has a full tank of Christmas Spirit and it flies. Buddy saves Christmas. Walter starts his own publishing company, which publishes a book called "Elf" written by Buddy, "Elf" becomes an award winning children's novel. Buddy marries Jovie and they have a child together.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• On the outside, the department store across the street from the Empire State Building shown in the movie is the current home of the CUNY Graduate Center, which was the former site of a B. Altman and Company department store, but was called Gimbel's (the real Gimbels was a block west at 6th ave between 32nd and 33rd streets, now the Manhattan Mall). Both companies have gone bankrupt. Gimbels was also the main competition in the original Miracle on 34th Street.
• Director Jon Favreau appears as a doctor who performs a blood test to verify that Buddy is Walter's son. He also voices the narwhal.
• Screenwriter David Berenbaum makes a cameo appearance as a worker in Walter's office.
• NY1, the TV news station on which the story of the Santa sighting spread, is a real 24-hour news station based in New York City.
• Leon the Snowman resembles and is voiced by the mysterious Leon Redbone, who can also be heard on the soundtrack singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Zooey Deschanel, replacing Will Ferrell who sang it earlier in the film with Deschanel.
• When Buddy tested the jack-in-the-boxes, a crazy laugh can be heard. This is the same laugh done by Ripper Roo of the Crash Bandicoot series. It was originally the sound of the hyena in The Lion King. Additionally, in the opening credits, while the walrus is bouncing up and down on the snow is the same sound as when Crash Bandicoot jumps on boxes in the same series.
• The larger of the two security guards who remove Buddy from the building twice is played by Pat Ferrell, Will's brother.

• Will Ferrell - Buddy
• Edward Asner - Santa Claus
• Bob Newhart - Papa Elf
• James Caan - Walter
• Mary Steenburgen - Emily
• Zooey Deschanel - Jovie
• Daniel Tay - Michael
• Faizon Love - Krumpet (Gimbel's Manager)
• Peter Dinklage - Miles Finch
• Amy Sedaris - Deb
• Michael Lerner - Fulton
• Andy Richter - Morris
• Kyle Gass - Eugene
• Artie Lange - Gimbel's Santa
• Claire Lautier - NY 1 Reporter
• Richard Side - Elf Teacher

Directed by Jon Favreau; written by David Berenbaum; distributed by New Line Cinema.

Elf 2 is rumored to be in production. However, Will Ferrell denies any intention in being in a sequel stating "I decided I wouldn't be able to. I didn't want to wander into an area that could erase all the good work I've done."^[1]

• Official site for the movie
• Elf at the Internet Movie Database
• Jon Favreau interview

Preceded by The Matrix Revolutions

Box office number-one films of 2003 (USA) November 16, 2003

Succeeded by The Cat in the Hat