“Have you seen these toilets? They’re ginormous!”

Buddy, played by Will Ferrell, is an adult human raised by elves, who just happens to think he is one. After realizing his origins, he finds out that his biological father works and lives in New York City, and so he goes on an adventure to go and meet him to learn more about himself. However, his father doesn’t even know he exists and lacks the Christmas spirit that Buddy has always known. Over the course of the film, Buddy learns more about who he is, while also restoring the Christmas spirit to all of those around him.

I’ll just go out and say immediately that this is easily, by a landslide, my favorite Christmas movie of all time. It’s the Christmas film that I have the most memories with, and the one that, as an adult, I enjoy the most nowadays. It’s so ingrained in my mind that I have practically memorized this movie scene-for-scene, with the exception of one scene towards the end, which, funny enough, was scratched on the DVD disc that we had, so I never actually got to see it until probably late elementary/middle school.

It’s just a crazy, fun, and hilarious fish-out-of-water story that is full of all the best scenarios that one could possibly imagine for this type of story. I think it is by far the best script out of all the comedic Christmas movies that I’ve seen, because pretty much every moment is clever and never gets dull or boring, even after watching it like a million times over the years. If I haven’t already praised the movie enough by claiming it to be my favorite Christmas movie, I’ll also go out on a limb and say that it also happens to be probably the only Christmas film I would consider watching outside of Christmas time itself.

Will Ferrell’s performance as Buddy the Elf only adds to this and is truly something special. There was actually someone recently who came into the coffee shop that I work at and cosplayed as him, which, if that doesn’t scream that the character is iconic, I don’t know what does. Ferrell as Buddy couldn’t have been more of a perfect casting, either, in my opinion, and is one of those performances that is hard to imagine being played by literally anyone else. His timing is incredible, his line delivery is incredible, and his screen presence is incredible.

I can’t not mention the great late James Caan as Buddy’s dad, Walter, either. Funny enough, Buddy, even though he is the main character, isn’t the character that gets a character arc in this movie; it’s Walter, and his arc is probably what makes the movie as heartfelt as it is. Buddy helps with that as well, too, obviously, but he kind of serves the main theme of the story, which is to never change who you are. This is a bit random, but I haven’t seen Misery yet; however, I couldn’t help but realize how funny it kind of is that Caan played two authors (at least as far as I know) over his career, but one was in a horror movie, and the other, in a Christmas one.

The thing I saved to talk about last is the comedy. As I sort of alluded to earlier, I think Elf is easily the funniest Christmas movie of all time. The comedy is hilarious, no matter what age you are, and it’s also one of those movies where you catch a lot more of it as an adult than you do as a kid, which definitely helps the rewatchability factor. While Buddy’s comedy is childish, Will Ferrell somehow manages to make it not feel childish whatsoever, at least not in a way that makes it cringe the older that you get. My favorite scene as a kid, by far, not to go into too much detail, would have to be the scene where he runs into the locker, funny enough. I don’t even know why it was my favorite; I just remember always having my dad rewind it over and over and over again.

At the end of the day, I don’t think I can come up with or even nitpick any criticisms for this movie. I think the concept of even doing that would be a bit ridiculous and kind of hilarious, to be honest. It’s one of the movies out there that perfectly achieves what it sets out to do, in literally every single way.