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Will Ferrell’s elf is the most-watched Christmas movie of modern times and one of the best holiday movies of all time. This is a simple story told in a very straightforward manner, so Buddy Elf’s father, Walter Hobbs, is the only one with a character arc in it.
At the beginning, we are told that Walter Hobbs (played by James Caan) is on the prank list. When Buddy meets him, everything seems designed to confirm that he deserves to be there. It’s Walter’s character arc, not Buddy’s, that drives the story. Buddy is the same person at the end of the movie as he was at the beginning. However, Walter is expected to undergo a transformation from a villain to a loving father who embraces the Christmas spirit.
Except that doesn’t happen at all. Walter Hobbs was never a bad guy. He shouldn’t have been on the naughty list. he is the real hero elfI will try to prove it.
First, let’s take each possible example of Scrooge-like behavior one by one.
Walter Hobbs only cares about his job.
Early on, Walter Hobbs is introduced as a workaholic who spends all his time at work and neglects his family. At one point, his son accused him of only caring about money. His wife also attacks him, accusing him of neglecting their son.
But that’s not what’s happening on screen. walter hobbes we see elf I’m home by dinner time every night. Indeed, one time, after a really hard day, he wanted to go to the man’s room to eat. The man was under a lot of stress. It is clear that it is not normal because his son reacts to his decision to eat alone as if it were unusual and asks if he can replicate his father’s behavior.
Just because he ate alone one night doesn’t make Walter Hobbs the devil.
In fact, it’s clear that Hobbs doesn’t care about his job at all. The quality of his work is absolutely rubbish. He was caught intentionally approving bad prints, which is a clear sign that he doesn’t care and hates working there.
Every time we see Walter at his desk, he looks like he wants to die.
So why is he there? Someone has to pay the bill.
Walter Hobbs wakes up every day to work a job he hates in order to support his family. He comes home for dinner every night and apparently almost always eats at the table with his family. What a monster.
Walter Hobbs doesn’t accept sidekicks.
When Buddy Elf shows up in Walter’s office, he is understandably confused. He threw Buddy away a few times from the shock of it all. He has no reason to believe what he says. The man is dressed like an elf and talking about Santa. Obviously he’s some kind of mentally ill weirdo. Any sane person would think he could be dangerous.
To make matters worse, Buddy sends Walter sexy lingerie to convince him that he’s his son. This must have made Walter wonder if Buddy’s true purpose had some strange sexual undertones. Most other people would have called the police, but kind-hearted Walter Hobbs did not. Instead, he decides to give Buddy a chance.
Walter pays to bail Buddy out of jail and takes him to a clinic to undergo tests. It’s a smart move when a 40-year-old man you’ve never seen before shows up on your doorstep claiming to be your next of kin. When Walter discovers that Buddy is his son, his attitude changes completely and he invites this complete stranger into his home.
This is all happening while Buddy continues to act strangely, and if he had claimed a less kind and empathetic person as his father, he probably would have committed the crime. Probably. Of course it’s not Buddy’s fault. He means well, but Walter has no way of knowing that.
Despite Buddy’s strangeness, Walter sees through him and decides to trust him around his family. Walter is so forgiving that he doesn’t flinch when Buddy starts destroying his house, except for making jokes about how much Buddy loves snow.
His solution to Buddy’s ruin is not to get rid of him, but to find a way to care for him. He asks his wife to stay home and keep an eye on him. When he can’t do that, Walter Hobbs takes his adult son with him to work.
Walter pushes his friend into the mail room.
Buddy Elf is an unemployed adult with no place to live and no prospects. He needs a job, so Walter Hobbs uses his company’s influence to offer him a job.
Buddy has no work history or experience. In other words, you are not eligible to work outside of the mailroom. Walter offers him a job there.
In a sense, it’s a success. Buddy has fun in the mailroom, makes new friends, and even gets paid. However, he gets drunk and dances on the table, which embarrasses his father.
Walter doesn’t overreact. He keeps his head down and continues to live his life as best he can.
Walter yells at his partner.
Walter’s job is at stake and he knows it. After years of toiling through an unrewarding career in an industry he clearly wasn’t suited for, it’s starting to take its toll.
Walter’s employees are useless and lazy, but he has a solution. He spends a lot of money to bring in great writers and have them do the marketing he needs to write a best-selling book.
Buddy, who would have been busy working in the mailroom to earn his own pay if he hadn’t been drunk, bursts in at the worst possible moment. And Walter starts insulting Walter’s customers for no reason. It quickly goes beyond yelling and becomes a full-on physical confrontation. All Walter can do is stand and watch in horror.
Walter’s sales meeting is ruined and his son is involved in an assault on company property, all in front of the employees. Further humiliation at work added to his reputation.
It was at that moment, after days of humiliation, abuse, and downright creepiness from a grown man he barely knew, that Walter Hobbs finally became enraged. He yells at Buddy to get out, and after Buddy leaves, he tries to find a way to get his reputation and career back.
Walter Hobbes creates art on Christmas Eve
Okay, but what about his indifference to Christmas? Things go awry when Walter goes to work on Christmas Eve.
However, Walter never wanted to be there. When his boss tells him he has to work on Christmas Eve, Walter immediately objects. He tried to refuse, but his boss threatened to fire him. His choice is to roll the dice on whether he can get a job or find another job to support his child. He worked because no one wants to miss work on Christmas. This is not petulant behavior, but the attitude of a responsible adult.
Just then, his youngest son burst in, yelling that Buddy Elf had run away. Despite being humiliated in front of his boss, Walter remains resolute. He protects his son when his boss says something rude to him.
Buddy Elf, on the other hand, is a grown man. A grown man who literally walked from the North Pole to New York to prove he could take care of himself. It’s the fifth or sixth time in the movie that he wanders around New York again, but there’s no reason to think he’s in any danger.
The child is overeating, and Walter knows it. He understood that my son was worried, so he told me that I would take care of him and calmly asked him to wait outside until he was done. The son refuses to obey his father and begins yelling at him, adding more work humiliation to his resume.
Any other parent would have kicked his son out of his room and grounded him for a year after his outburst, but the sympathetic Walter relented. He realized that his family didn’t seem to care about his son or his job. Humiliated and degraded by them, he quits and gives up on making a living.
real villain of elf
Walter Hobbs is not a villain. He’s an introvert and doesn’t share his feelings, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.
Walter Hobbs is abused, humiliated, yelled at, inappropriately touched, and subjected to unwanted tickling by a grown man wearing tights. Walter will never crumble. He keeps it together and keeps the soldiers moving. After weeks of abuse, he has one small emotional outburst and quickly tries to make up for it.
elf It’s full of terrible people. Miles Finch is a delusional egoist. Walter’s crack writing team are lazy sycophants. His secretary is a kitten-killing psychopath. His boss is an idiot.
And there’s Santa too. He knew all along who Buddy’s father was, but instead of telling Walter Hobbs that he had a son, he dropped him off to be raised by elves. To add insult to injury, Santa puts Walter on the naughty list and spends decades putting a lump of coal under Walter’s tree while the elves trick Buddy into thinking he’s one of them. spent.
There’s a villain inside elf. Walter Hobbs is not one of them.
