Over the Christmas / New Year holiday time the New Zealand Herald
newspaper ran this series of articles with journalists giving their
suggestions for New Zealand's favourite family film for The Great
Family Film Poll ...


*Elf*
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 movies 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
Drinklage ("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 always loved Christmas but I used to 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.

Fairy-tale of New York, Snoopy's Christmas and trimming
the tree will get you close but shove Elf on the box
and you're well and truly there. As Buddy says to Jovie:
"I think you're really beautiful and I feel really warm
when I'm around you and my tongue swells up".

- Matt Heath, Radio Hauraki Breakfast Host
31 December, 2015

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