Lately, I've been deluged with advertisements in which a dopey
basketball player with big hair played by Will Ferrell promotes the
movie Semi-Pro. Although Ferrell was my favorite Saturday Night Live
cast member during his time on the show, largely because of his
hilarious impersonations of such venerable figures as George W. Bush,
Alex Trebek and James Lipton, I've generally found his films to be crude
and stupid. However, there has been one notable exception to that
trend.
Elf stars Ferrell as Buddy, the tallest elf in
Santa's workshop. He lives in a world built for people half his size and
smaller. Though he's bursting with Christmas cheer, always wearing an
exuberant grin as he prances about in his green suit and yellow tights,
physically, he just doesn't fit in, and there's a very good reason for
that. Buddy is not an elf.
No, he's a regular old human who
stowed away in Santa's (Ed Asner) pack as an infant and wound up at the
North Pole, a fish out of water but still presumably much happier than
he would have been at the orphanage he left. Though he loves his frosty
home and especially the elf who raised him (Bob Newhart), when he gets
the shocking truth about his past, Buddy is determined to go to the big
city and meet his father (James Caan). But the naive young man with the
emotional maturity of a five-year-old isn't prepared for what lies
ahead...
Ferrell completely throws himself into his
performance, making Buddy funny without being obnoxious, sweet without
being saccharine. Yes, he's over-the-top, but having seen what Ferrell
is capable of, I'd say he exercised admirable restraint. While Buddy was
physically out of place at the North Pole, he is mentally out of place
in New York City, impossibly bright-eyed and naive like Giselle in
Disney's Enchanted.
Like Giselle, he finds himself falling for a jaded New Yorker. In this
case, it's department store elf Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), who isn't too
full of the Christmas spirit. Their romance unfolds gradually, prodded
along by Buddy's encouragement for her to sing, an activity she doesn't
want to admit she loves. Speaking of singing, the movie got a nice
little squeal out of me with an off-hand reference to Simon and
Garfunkel; if you love Paul and Artie as much as I do, keep an ear out!
While I don't expect much out of Semi-Pro, Elf
is a thoroughly enjoyable movie, a gently funny showcase of all the
best Ferrell has to offer, and I hope he has a film or two along those
family-friendly lines in his future.
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