Joshua Tyler | Posted
Will Ferrell’s elf It is the most-watched Christmas movie of modern times and one of the best Christmas movies of all time. It’s a simple story told in a very simple way, with Buddy Elf’s father, Walter Hobbs, being the only character with a character arc.
We’ve been told from the beginning that Walter Hobbs (played by James Caan) is on the naughty list. When Buddy meets him, everything seems designed to confirm that he deserves to be there. It is Walter’s character arc, not Buddy’s, that drives the story. Buddy is the same person at the beginning and end of the movie. However, Walter is believed to have transformed from a villain to a loving father who embraces the spirit of Christmas.
But that doesn’t happen at all. Walter Hobbes was by no means a bad person. He shouldn’t have been on the naughty list. he is a true hero elfAnd I will prove it.
Let’s start by looking at each hypothesized example of Scrooge-like behavior one at a time.
Walter Hobbes only cares about his own business
Early on, we are introduced to Walter Hobbs as a workaholic who devotes himself to his career and neglects his family. At one point, his son belittled him, accusing him of only being interested in money. His wife also attacks him, accusing him of neglecting their son.
But that doesn’t happen on screen. Walter Hobbes as we see it elf I come home in time for dinner every night. Of course, one time, after a really hard day, he wanted to go to his cave and eat. That person was very stressed. Clearly, that’s not the norm, because his son reacts to his decision to eat alone as if it were a novelty to ask if he could emulate his father’s behavior.
Dining alone one night doesn’t make Walter Hobbes the devil.
In fact, it’s pretty clear that Hobbs doesn’t care about his job at all. The quality of his work is absolute garbage. He once knowingly signed off on a misprint, which is a clear sign that he doesn’t care and hates working there.
Every time I saw him sitting at his desk, Walter looked like he had a death wish.
So why is he there? Someone has to pay.
Walter Hobbs wakes up every day and goes to work at a job he hates to support his family. He comes home for dinner every night. Apparently, he almost always eats at the table with his family. It’s truly a monster.
Walter Hobbes Takes No Friends
When Buddy Elf shows up in Walter’s office, he’s understandably confused. He threw away several birdies due to the impact. He has no reason to trust him. The man is dressed like an elf and talking about Santa. That guy is definitely a psychopath. Any reasonable person would have thought he might be dangerous.
To make matters worse, Buddy’s way of convincing Walter that he is his son is by sending him sexy lingerie. This may have made Walter wonder if Buddy’s true purpose might have some strange sexual overtones. Almost anyone would have called the police, but not friendly Walter Hobbs. Instead, he decided to give Buddy a chance.
Walter pays to get Buddy out of jail and takes him to the hospital to be checked out. It’s a smart move when a 40-year-old man you’ve never met shows up on your doorstep and claims to be your next of kin. When the test results prove that Buddy is his son, Walter invites this complete stranger to his home.
All of this is happening while Buddy continues to engage in bizarre behavior that he probably would have committed to if he had claimed someone less kind and less empathetic as his father. Of course, it’s not Buddy’s fault. His intentions are good, but Walter has no way of knowing.
Despite Buddy’s oddities, Walter sees through who he is on the inside and decides to trust him around his family. Walter is so generous that he doesn’t even flinch when Buddy starts destroying his house, other than joking about how much Buddy loves the snow.
His solution to destroying Buddy is not to kick him out, but to find a way to take care of him. He asks his wife to stay at home and supervise him. When she cannot, Walter Hobbs takes his adult son to work.
Walter sticks his friend in the mailroom.
Buddy Elf is an unemployed adult with no place to live and no prospects. He needs a job, so Walter Hobbs uses his corporate influence to get one.
Buddy has no job history or experience. This means you are not eligible to work anywhere other than the mailroom. Walter gets him a job there.
In some ways, it’s a success. Buddy has fun in the mailroom, makes new friends, and gets paid. However, he also embarrasses his father by getting drunk and dancing on the table.
Walter is not overreacting. He puts his head down and lives life as best he can.
Walter yells at his friend.
He knows Walter’s job is on the line. He’d had an unrewarding career for years in an industry that clearly wasn’t for him, and it was starting to take its toll.
Walter’s employees are useless and lazy, but he has a solution. He hires famous authors at great expense to give them the advice they need to write best-selling books.
Buddy, who would have been busy earning his paycheck in the mail room if he wasn’t drunk, suddenly jumps in at the worst possible moment. Then Walter starts insulting his guests for no reason. It soon goes beyond shouting and leads to a full-blown physical confrontation. All Walter can do is stand and watch in horror.
Walter’s pitch meeting has now fallen apart, and his son has been involved in an assault on company premises, all in front of his employees. Add another workplace humiliation to his reputation.
It was only in that moment, after Walter Hobbes suffered days of indignities, abuse, and creepy creeps from an adult man he barely knew, that he finally lost his temper. He yells at Buddy to get out, and tries to find a way to salvage his reputation and career after Buddy leaves.
Walter Hobbs works on Christmas Eve
Okay, but what about his indifference to Christmas? When Walter comes to work on Christmas Eve, things really fall apart.
Except, Walter didn’t want to be there at all. When his boss tells him he has to work on Christmas Eve, Walter immediately objects. He tries to refuse, but his boss threatens to fire him. His options are to go to work or roll the dice to see if he can find another job that will allow him to feed his child. Since no one wants to work on Christmas, he did his own thing. That’s not being a whiner, it’s being a responsible adult.
Then his youngest child suddenly ran up and yelled at Buddy the Elf for running away. Despite feeling humiliated in front of his superiors, Walter remains steadfast. He defends his son when his boss speaks rudely to him.
Meanwhile, Buddy Elf has grown up. A grown man who proved he could take care of himself by literally walking from the North Pole to New York. He’s wandering around New York again for the fifth or sixth time in the movie, and there’s no reason to think he’s in danger.
Walter knows that the child is overeating. He also understands that his son is worried, so he tells him he will take care of it and calmly asks him to wait outside until his son can finish. His son refuses to obey his father and begins yelling at him, adding another professional humiliation to his resume.
Any other parent would have kicked his son out of his room after that tirade and grounded him for a year. But the sympathetic Walter gives up. He realizes that his family does not seem to care about him or his job, and after being humiliated and despised by them, he gives up trying to make a living and quits.
The real villains of elves
Walter Hobbes is not a villain. He may be an introvert who doesn’t share his feelings, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.
Walter Hobbs was abused, humiliated, yelled at and touched inappropriately by an adult man in stockings who decided to give him unwanted tickles. Walter never breaks down. He holds it together and soldier on. After being abused for a few weeks, he has small outbursts and immediately tries to make amends.
elf It’s full of horrible people. Miles Finch is a delusional egotist. Walter’s crack writing team are lazy sycophants. His secretary is a psychopath who kills kittens. His boss is an idiot.
And Santa knew who Buddy’s father was, but instead of telling Walter Hobbs that he had a son, he left Buddy in the care of an elf and took him away. To make matters worse, Santa puts Walter on the naughty list and spends decades placing lumps of coal under Walter’s tree every year, allowing the elves to trick Buddy into thinking he is one of them.
There are villains elf. Walter Hobbes is not one of them.
