Elf

Come to Holy Trinity Church on Saturday 9 December to watch Buddy the Elf travel to New York in search of his real father, and rediscover the true meaning of Christmas in the process. Featuring a PG-friendly fight with a fake Santa Claus, a Christmas spirit powered sleigh piloted by the real Santa Claus and a host of other adventures, toboggan on down with the family for one of our favourite festive films from the naughties!

Since it was released in 2003, Elf has won a place in many people’s hearts. It’s also destroyed a few people’s minds as they can’t stand the sickly sentimental tale of Buddy, the Elf-imposter, on his travels to New York City. As Santa Claus is making his rounds in the 1980s, a human orphan crawls into his sack and accidentally hitches a ride to the North Pole. Raised as an elf by Papa Elf, Buddy knows he’s at least four feet taller than most of the other elves but when he realises that he’s also a human (we were shocked too!), he decides to go to New York City and seek out his birth father.

It may be silly, it might be riddled with more continuity errors than you can shake a candy cane at, and it also features a sleigh powered by Christmas spirit but it also comes from Jon Favreau, it stars James Caan and Bob Newhart, and it sees Will Ferrell fighting a fake Santa. It’s this combination that saw Roger Ebert describe it as “one of those rare Christmas comedies that has a heart, a brain and a wicked sense of humour, and it charms the socks right off the mantelpiece”. We’re inclined to agree, and we’ll certainly be at Holy Trinity on the 9 December with enough Christmas spirit to power a Number 3 bus!

Before you leave home we encourage you to grab some supplies or any spare change to help the Herne Hill Free Film Festival help the Norwood and Brixton Foodbank make as many happy Christmases as possible in the local area this year. The Herne Hill Free Film Festival will be tweeting information about urgently needed items so stay tuned on Twitter to @HerneHillFilm.

Click here to see the trailer!