‘Love Actually’ and ‘Elf’ Are Timeless, and Very Rooted in a Specific Era

New York Times critic A.O. Scott was forced to get into the Christmas spirit a little too early in 2003. On November 7—20 years ago today—he published two reviews, one deriding an “indigestible Christmas pudding” and the other celebrating a film with “sticky, gooey good cheer.” (Maybe holiday-baking prep also started early that year?)

What Scott and probably nobody else quite realized at the time was that both of these November releases were on their way to becoming Christmas classics, quite possibly the last of their kind. Love Actually and Elf, two movies about modern-day urbanites transformed by the power of Christmas, are not usually thought of in the same breath, as some kind of early millennial Christmas Barbenheimer. But they’re more alike than their individual, outsized reputations might suggest, and more particular to their era than many Christmas classics: specifically, the post–9/11 period in which they were made.

In Love Actually, the connection is obvious from the very start, as Hugh Grant’s prime minister warmly reminds viewers in voiceover: “When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge. They were all messages of love.” It’s wild, in retrospect, that a movie this warm and fuzzy chose to both begin and end at the airport, a place that was then newly synonymous with random security checks and a vague but unshakable sense of dread. But it also fits with Love Actually’s dogged optimism that in the face of awfulness—the death of a spouse, infidelity, inexplicably being called fat by your loved ones—the human spirit can prevail.

Elf wears its era much more lightly, combining fantasy elements with a kind of twinkling Miracle on 34th Street charm in a way that would feel wildly risky in less capable hands. But this movie was filmed in New York City at the end of 2002—of course 9/11 is there if you look for it. When Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf visits the Empire State Building office of his grinchy father (James Caan), there’s an enormous American flag, framed behind glass, near the receptionist’s desk.