Film Review: Elfing Around

Everyone thinks they’re a genius. And I think Joel Edmiston just might be.

I’m not gonna lie, I was very much prepared to hate Elfing Around because the premise is borderline pretentiously bizarre. But, fuck me, I really did enjoy it.

Elfing Around is almost avant garde in its absurdity. It’s one guy using a bunch of stock photos and licence-free music to tell a completely nutso Christmas story that is impossible to summarize. Yet somehow, it works. Watching this was honestly such a strange experience. I’ve never laughed so hard and then said out loud, “I hate myself so much”, but that happened several times during this roller coaster of a thing.

A lot of it is infinitely quotable, but there’s absolutely no context in which one could say these things without sounding insane. It’s the kind of thing you’d show your friends at a party but open with, “Okay, hear me out, I promise this is funny” and only half of them will believe you; and then only half of that half will like it. But the people that do — myself included — will really like it.

It’s hard to explain, but it’s simultaneously the most lazy and the most hard-working thing I've ever seen. Not sure if that’s the vibe Edmiston was going for, but that’s what we got. About ⅔ of this was possibly genius. Unhinged, certainly, but genius. The other third I could’ve done without; there was really no need for this to be the length of a feature film. It’s what I imagine bingeing junk food feels like: you know it’s not good for you and rotting your brain-teeth, but you love it. But when you’ve had too much, you just know.

Look, this pandemic has affected us all in different ways. And while I’m sure much of this was already in Edmiston’s head, a lot of it screams “I am bored and can’t do live comedy right now!”. And I mean this in the nicest way possible. But given that this is clearly for slackers with short attention spans such as myself, the length does it a disservice. That said, you really get the sense that he was having a good time making this and I love that. This is definitely not for everyone, but I’m sure the people who like it, will really, really like it.