2023-12-14 20:00:00
Esther Zuckerman / c.2023 The New York Times Company / Performance: Giorgos Psomiadis 14.12.2023 • 20:00
On November 7, 2003, the American public had the opportunity to watch either the «Elf» either the «Love Actually» for the first time in cinemas. People could either be humming along to ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ with Will Ferrell or humming along to ‘Both Sides Now’ and Emma Thompson. He could imagine himself running across Central Park to save Santa or rushing through Heathrow Airport to catch a loved one before a flight. And it’s more than likely that many of the moviegoers who watched these movies on that fateful day in November have seen them again since then. In the end, both have become genuine seasonal classics.
Every year around this time, you’re likely to turn your gaze to the television and catch one of the two playing on the screen. “Love Actually” the rom-com with multiple storylines, has been analyzed down to its smallest detail. (Is it sweet, cynical, romantic, hunchback?) Will Ferrell’s bold comedy “Elf” has been adapted into a Broadway musical and an animated television special. You can even look up how to make Buddy the Elf’s Spaghetti Dipped in M&M’s and Chocolate Syrup.
“Elf” was an instant hit, topping the box office in its second weekend and eventually grossing around $220 million worldwide. “Love Actually,” which began in limited release, ended up grossing $244 million. Both films today seem like relics of another era. Of the time when films had the kind of special theatrical release that allowed them to win over audiences and achieve that elusive classic status, joining a pantheon that includes ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ and ‘Home Alone”.
The new, violent (?) Christmas
These days it’s rare to find a movie like ‘Love Actually’ or ‘Elf’ in theaters. Holiday-themed titles played on the big screen tend to be violent and aimed at audiences who can handle a little blood with their Christmas tree. Last year David Harbor played Santa Claus as a “John Wick-type” killer in the movie Violent Night. The bloody revenge tale “Silent Night” premiered on December 1 from action filmmaker John Woo. Since when did Christmas really become so vindictive?
Lighter options meanwhile have moved en masse to screens and TVs, via streaming or cable. Some of the most persistent purveyors of material sweeter than eggnog are Hallmark, which churns out dozens of unmemorable movies each year, and Netflix, which has established what it calls a “Holiday Universe.” , which includes film series such as “The Princess Switch” with Vanessa Hudgens. Last year, one of the biggest headlines was “Falling for Christmas” starring Lindsay Lohan in a bad, “snowy” knockoff of the movie “Overboard.”
Even once-profitable stars are parking their Christmas vehicles online. Amazon is set to release ‘Candy Cane Lane’ in December. It stars Eddie Murphy in a film billed in the promotional email as his “first holiday film,” a distinction that “Trading Places” seems to ignore.
They don’t make them like they used to…
For those who are surprisingly still uninitiated: “Elf”, directed by Jon Favreau, describes the adventures of Farrell’s cheerful and naive Buddy, a man raised in the North Pole by Santa’s elves, who ventures into New York in search of his biological father, an eccentric children’s book editor played by James Caan. The film features purposeful flashbacks to Rankin/Bass’s special animated Christmas releases, such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964). , as well as “inelegant?” jokes about New York that don’t shock anyone too much.
While ‘Elf’ was flagged as eligible with parental consent desired, ‘Love Actually’ was flagged as a program with parental consent required. However, despite some nudity and despite any profanity, it surpasses “Elf” in seriousness. The directorial debut of Richard Curtis, the screenwriter of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Notting Hill”, brings together stories of love-struck Londoners during the holiday season. There’s Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister who can’t take his eyes off one of his employees (Martine McCutchen), Emma Thompson as the grieving wife whose husband (Alan Rickman) is rather unfaithful, and Liam Neeson as his widower whose young stepson (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) is in love. And the list goes on…
An informal confrontation
When the two films were originally released, neither saw the other as competing, according to “Elf” production team member Todd Komarnicki and “Love Actually” Working Title Films production team member Tim Bevan.
“We were going head-to-head with ‘Master and Commander,'” Komarnicki says of the high-seas period drama starring Russell Crowe, before adding: “For me, ‘Love Actually’ is just a movie that I really liked. ». (Both Christmas movies would make it into the top 20 highest-grossing films worldwide for 2003, surpassing “Master and Commander”).
And Bevan didn’t even consider “Love Actually” a Christmas movie. “You kind of knew it was in the Christmas mood because of the songs and all the other elements,” he says. “But it felt more like a romantic comedy than a Christmas movie.”
Instead, he saw “Love Actually” as a follow-up to the successes of “Four Wedding and a Funeral” and “Notting Hill,” both of which contributed to the rise of the British rom-com as a profitable industry. To be clear, Bevan understands why the film is so associated with Christmas.
“It’s about eight or nine different strands where there are distinctly strong feelings about love and family and all the rest of it,” he says. “That’s what makes a Christmas movie.”
A life preserver against cynicism
Today we take Christmas movie entertainment for granted, as if we’ve known it forever, as if it’s somehow eternal. But looking back at the early 2000s, pop culture was buzzing with the holiday spirit. After mid-century films like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street” offered existential musings in a festive mood, a wave of new audience favorites with a modern twist emerged in the late ’80s and at the beginning of the ’90s. “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” and “Home Alone,” both written by John Hughes, offered holiday satires of the nuclear family with outlandish settings.
“Elf” and “Love Actually,” meanwhile, were seen, each in their own way, as reactions of optimism to the 9/11 attacks, a reminder that cynicism can be overcome. But 2003 also saw the release of “Bad Santa,” a now-audience-first subgenre of Christmas movies for adults that includes “The Night Before” (2015) and “A Bad Moms Christmas” (2017).
After all, what is a classic film?
It takes time for a movie to become a classic, so it’s easy to say with confidence that “Elf” and “Love Actually” deserve that designation. “It’s possible that a decade later you’re thinking, ‘Wow, people are still watching this movie at Christmas,'” Bevan says of the realization that “Love Actually” had become an all-time favorite.
And while there are certainly external factors influencing the popularity of both of these titles – including the fact that those who regulate the television schedules have them play with such frequency that it reaches the point of obnoxiousness during the winter months – there must be some unconscious collective decision to that a movie is worth watching again and again.
To some extent this must be because these films were iconic with a certain sense of communal experience when audiences flocked to watch them in 2003. “The sad thing is, if we had made both of these films for streamers today, I would say that we wouldn’t be having this conversation in 20 years,” says Bevan.
While he and Kormanicki insisted that their films could now be shown in theaters, “Elf” and “Love Actually,” with the compromises their modest budgets would require, would likely feel out of place in today’s cinematic landscape. With a few exceptions — like 2019’s “Last Christmas,” based on the song “Wham!” — there doesn’t seem to be much room for Christmas entertainment in theaters unless it’s somehow gory or sacrilegious. Even Farrell’s most recent foray into the Christmas season, the Dickens-inspired 2022 musical “Spirited,” starring Ryan Reynolds, was made for Apple TV+, a streaming platform.
Streaming was supposed to make movies more accessible, but instead it just makes them seem more disposable. And that’s not to say that streaming services haven’t released some really compelling Christmas material in the movie trove, like Netflix’s visually innovative animated feature “Klaus” (2019) or Hulu’s queer rom-com “Happiest Season” ( 2020), starring Kristen Stewart. However, the holidays thrive on nostalgia, and it’s hard to miss the last Vanessa Hudgens princess movie you watched while scrolling through your Instagram homepage.
If I’m being honest, over the past 20 years I’ve had “Elf” and “Love Actually” playing in the background countless times while I’m casually running errands or hanging out with my family, but that’s largely because I know them both almost from ‘ outside. My mother usually requires a joint viewing of “Love Actually” at some point each year. And yet, the reason I love this movie so much is because every viewing reminds me of the previous one, which makes me think back to when I first saw it in a movie theater basement in 2003.
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