The Elfkins

Ten Second Review: A short, sweet and well paced film, The Elfkins is a hidden gem for kids in the lead up to Christmas.

I truly believe in seeing a little bit of everything. I think my appreciation for film is at its best when I’m mixing what I’m watching as much as possible and right now is the perfect time for that as cinemas are scrambling to fill screens with anything they can find. It was because of this that I ended up seeing a small kids film about Elfkins.

Everyone knows that Elfkins live to learn a craft and secretly help humans to complete their work, but Elfie is not good at any crafts. She is imaginative and creative but her ideas always go a little bit wrong and she hasn’t yet found her true calling. She decides to leave home so she can go out and discover what she was born to do and as it would happen she’s just in time! A Baker needs help to bring his pastry business back to life before it has to close for ever...

I have to be honest that while I do truly believe in seeing a little bit of everything, I did go into this with low expectations. I imagined I’d be a seeing a low quality kids film that reeked of a Ratatouille come Gnomeo and Juliet rip off and, while it was certainly borrowing extensively from those films, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. At each turn I was pleasantly surprised and I feel rather pained at my cynicism in believing that this small production would be abjectly bad merely by virtue of being a small production. 

The animation itself, while by no means groundbreaking, is better than I have seen from some much larger studios in recent years.  The textures and character of the world is very sweet and the Elfkins and Humans are nice enough models as to not stick out from the current offerings. Yes, there are moments that you can see spaces between characters and items or some slightly odd textures, but it’s charming enough that most won’t notice and children almost certainly won’t. The voice acting is also engaging, although this is probably the film’s weakest part as the fact it has been translated leads to some disconnect between dialogue and characters. Again, this won’t bother most and I’m sure won’t be an overwhelming negative for younger viewers.

It’s a sweet enough story told with enough pace and intrigue that it is sure to keep people (old and young) entertained, but not so long as to let that enjoyment fizzle out into overstaying its welcome. It doesn’t take great chances or make bold statements, but it does what it does very well. 

This film won’t change the world,  but for a small film about elves I think it does very well. I can see this being an easy one to throw on for the little ones in the run up to Christmas (as while it’s is not Christmassy it does still have elves) and you might just find yourself enjoying it too. It doesn’t pretend to shake the genre and is just a well executed version of what it is; a surprisingly sweet story about Elfkins trying to help humans to bake cakes.