David and the Elves Parent Guide

David (Cyprian Grabowski) is anxious about Christmas. This will be the first year he celebrates the holiday in his new home in Warsaw, far from his grandparents’ familiar home in the mountains. Also struggling with the season is Albert, (Jakub Zajac), one of Santa’s elves. He’s feeling overworked and underappreciated, so he decides to head south to the human world to see what all the fuss is about. When the two meet, David and Albert set off to discover what makes Christmas so special.

Christmas movies, particularly those aimed at families, are generally built around strong seasonal themes such as generosity, family, selflessness, etc. Where David and the Elves suffers is in its lack of messaging, or at least in its inability to get to its message in a timely fashion. The first act is pretty good. The writers set up the characters and premise well, and the audience can start to guess at where the plot is going. From there, throughout the entire second and most of the third act, the story just spins its wheels and nothing really happens. Characters repeat themselves multiple times (though it’s possible this is a translation problem) and story beats get recycled repeatedly. I had a guess as to the theme that would finally emerge, but the story just never really got to the point. In the last five minutes of runtime, a rudimentary thesis develops: specifically, being together is what Christmas is all about and home is where your family is. Those are fine points to make, but the fact that they’re shoehorned in at the last-minute kind of ruins the impact.

In the production’s defense, there are a lot of positive aspects to the film. The acting is good across the board, including the English dubs (which means youngsters can enjoy the film without the inconvenience of subtitles). The production quality is high, with good set design and special effects. I also really appreciated having Mrs. Claus be a main character with her own personality and motivations, as she almost always ends up forgotten in these types of movies. It’s just too bad these positive aspects get overshadowed by the movie’s overwhelming boredom and lack of momentum.

Another knock against my recommending the movie is in the negative content. There’s an unusually high amount of swearing, at least in the English subtitles and dubs, and a fair amount of substance use. I assume those aspects come down to cultural differences between Poland and North American beliefs about suitable family content, but they are present here nonetheless. Between the swearing and the mind-numbing boredom, I don’t recommend this film. If you’re looking for similar levels of excitement and seasonal warmth, might I suggest a virtual fireplace video instead?