by Joshua Tyler
| Published
Will Ferrell dwarf It is the most watched Christmas movie of modern times and one of the best holiday movies of all time. It's a simple story told in such a straightforward way that Buddy Elf's father, Walter Hobbs, is the only character with a character arc.
We're initially told 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 that drives the story, not Buddy's. Buddy is the same person at the end of the movie as he was at the beginning. But Walter is supposed to go from being a villain to a loving father who embraces the Christmas spirit.
However, this is not what happens at all. Walter Hobbs was never a bad man. It shouldn't be on the naughty list. He is the real hero of dwarfAnd I will prove it.
We'll start by taking each putative example of miser-like behavior one by one.
Walter Hobbs only cares about his job
Early on, we learn about Walter Hobbs as a workaholic who spends all his time on his career and neglects his family. At one point, his son insulted him and accused him of only caring about money. His wife also attacks him, accusing him of neglecting his son.
But that's not what's happening on screen. The Walter Hobbs we see in him dwarf He is home on time for dinner every night. Sure enough, one time, after he'd had a really rough day, he wanted to go eat in his man cave. The man was under a lot of stress. This is clearly not the norm because his son reacts to his decision to eat alone as if it were a new order by asking if he can replicate his father's behavior.
Eating alone one night does not make Walter Hobbs a devil.
In fact, it's pretty clear that Hobbes doesn't care about his job at all. The quality of his work is absolute garbage. He was intentionally caught signing bad print, which is a clear sign that he doesn't care and hates working there.
Every time we see him at his desk, Walter looks like he has a death wish.
So why is he there? Someone has to pay the bills.
Walter Hobbs wakes up every day and goes to a job he hates in order to support his family. He comes home every night for dinner, which, it seems, he always eats at the table with his family. What a monster.
Walter Hobbs does not accept a friend
When Buddy Elf shows up at Walter's office, he's understandably confused. He kicked Buddy out a few times from the shock of it all. He has no reason to believe him. The man is dressed as an elf and talks about Santa. He's clearly some kind of psychopath. Any reasonable person would have thought it could be dangerous.
To make matters worse, Buddy's way of convincing Walter that he is his son is to send him sexy lingerie. This must have made Walter wonder if Buddy's true object might have a strange sexual connotation. Almost anyone else would have called the police, but not the kind-hearted Walter Hobbs. Instead, he decided to give Buddy a chance.
Walter bails Buddy out of jail, takes him to the clinic, and gets him tested. It's a sensible thing to do when a 40-year-old man you've never seen before shows up on your doorstep, claiming to be a relative. The moment the test proves that Buddy is his son, Walter changes his face and invites this person, whom he does not know at all, to his home.
All of this happens while Buddy continues to engage in strange behavior that, had he claimed to be a less kind and compassionate person like his father, would likely have kept him committed. It's not Paddy's fault, of course. He means well, but Walter has no way of knowing that.
Despite Buddy's eccentricity, Walter sees through him the person inside him and decides to trust him with his family. Walter is very tolerant, and other than a joke about how much Buddy loves the snow, he doesn't flinch even when Buddy starts destroying his house.
His solution to Buddy's destruction is not to kick him out, but to figure out a way to take care of him. He asks his wife to stay with him at home and supervise. When she can't, Walter Hobbs takes his adult son to work.
Walter sticks up with his friend in the mailroom
Buddy Elf is an unemployed adult with nowhere to live and no prospects. He needs a job, so Walter Hobbs uses his company's influence to get him one.
Buddy has no employment history and no experience, which means he is not qualified to work anywhere other than the mailroom. Walter got a job there.
In a way, it's a success. Buddy is having a good time in the mailroom, where he does new work friends And he gets a salary. However, he also embarrasses his father by getting drunk and dancing on tables.
Walter doesn't overreact. He puts his head down and continues on with life as best he can.
Walter yells at friends
Walter's job is on the line, and he knows it. He's been working his way through a thankless career for years in an industry he clearly doesn't fit into, and it's starting to take its toll.
Walter's employees are useless and lazy, but he has a solution. At great expense, he hires a professional writer to provide them with the idea they need to write a best-selling book.
Buddy, who would have been busy working in the mailroom earning his own paycheck if he hadn't been drunk, explodes at the worst moment. Then, for no reason, Walter can see that he is starting to insult Walter's guest. It soon goes beyond screaming and becomes a full-blown physical confrontation. All Walter could do was stand and watch in horror.
Walter's playground meeting has now been ruined, his son has been involved in an assault on company grounds, and it all happened in front of his employees. Add another workplace humiliation to his reputation.
Only in that moment, after days of shame, abuse, and intense fear from a grown man he barely knew, did Walter Hobbs finally become angry. He yells at Buddy to get out, and after Buddy leaves, he tries to find some way to save his reputation and career.
Walter Hobbs works on Christmas Eve
Okay, but what about his lack of interest in Christmas? Things really fall apart when Walter goes to work on Christmas Eve.
Except Walter never wanted 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 choice is to go to work or roll the dice so he can find another job to feed his child. No one wanted to be out of work at Christmas, so he did his job. This isn't weird behavior, it's being a responsible adult.
Just then his youngest child bursts in, talking loudly about Buddy Elf running away. Despite being shamed in front of his boss, Walter stands firm. He defends his son when his boss talks to him rudely.
Meanwhile, Buddy Elf has become a grown man. A grown man proved he can take care of himself by literally walking all the way from the North Pole to New York. He's wandering around New York again, the fifth or sixth time he's done so in the film, and there's no reason to believe he's in any danger.
The kid is overeating, and Walter knows it. He also understands that his son is worried, so he tells him that he will take care of it and calmly asks him to wait outside until he can finish. His son refuses to obey his father and begins yelling at him, adding another business insult to his resume.
Any other parent would have kicked their son out of the room and grounded him for a year after that tirade, but the merciful Walter yielded. He realized that his family didn't seem to care about him or his job, and after weeks and weeks of being humiliated and insulted by them, he gave up trying to make a living and quit.
The real villains of the troll
Walter Hobbs is not evil. He's an introvert and doesn't share his feelings, but that doesn't make him a bad person.
Walter Hobbs is abused, humiliated, screamed at, and inappropriately touched by a grown man in tights who decides to give him unwanted tickles. Walter never breaks down. It keeps it together and soldiers on. He has a mini-revolt after weeks of abuse and immediately tries to make amends.
dwarf Full of terrible people. Miles Finch is an egomaniac. Walter's writing team are lazy sycophants. His secretary is a psychopath who kills cats. His boss is an idiot.
Then there's Santa, who knew who Buddy's father was all along but left him to be raised by one of the elves instead of telling Walter Hobbs that he had a son. To make matters worse, Santa puts Walter on the naughty list and spends a few decades letting the elves trick Buddy into thinking he's one of them while placing lumps of coal under Walter's tree every year.
There are bad guys in dwarf. Walter Hobbs is not one of them.
