STAR SHOWER MOVIE MAGIC MOVIE
Historically, the real-life Gimbels was Macy's competitor until shutting down in 1987, with their rivalry cementing itself into Christmas movie history as a plot point in the original Miracle on 34th Street.
The Gimbels we see in the movie might not be as dedicated to it as Macy's, of course. It's a lot more complicated than just one dude sitting on a big chair, asking kids what they want for Christmas. If you've ever been to Macy's around Christmastime - or read David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries, which chronicled his time working as an elf at the department store and was cited by Favreau as an inspiration for the scenes - then you already know that these stores take their Santa setup very seriously. Since the original Gimbels Santa is no longer available, the toy department's manager has to fill in, and frankly, that's ridiculous. What happens after, however, seems like a stretch. If he's neglecting his family for work, but he's not actually doing any work, is he just sitting there, taking as much time away from his wife and son as he can so that he can stare off into space and contemplate oblivion? That is dark.Įven if Buddy's sudden temper is slightly out of character, that all makes perfect sense in the context of the movie. That raises a pretty grim question, though. Even the most inept employee would notice if he was initialing two gigantic blank pages, so the simple fact is that Walter just doesn't care. Despite filling the role of the workaholic who spends too much time at the office, Walter doesn't actually seem to care about anything that he's doing at work, to the point of approving a proof of a book that was missing two pages. Or rather, due to decisions that he didn't make. His company's floundering, and their downturn is a direct result of decisions that he made. Normally, the person in this kind of plot who's obsessing over their work is at least successful in that arena, which makes it more effective when they have to choose what's capital-letter "Really Important." Walter's got plenty of money - that apartment at Central Park West doesn't come cheap - but as far as the work goes, he's hardly a success. It's not great, but it's better than nothing.
He's not even the only one there who needs human-sized furniture, since Santa Claus also lives there and has been doing so for about 1500 years! Even if the elves aren't the ones who made his furniture, just order another mattress and put it on the floor. Building things is literally all the elves do, and a king-sized bed frame and mattress surely wouldn't take as much time to cobble together as, say, building a PlayStation 4 from scratch.
It's not like it would take them that long. So why, in the 30 years that he's been there, haven't they made the slightest adjustment to their housing situation so that he's not destroying his spine every night? They even take time to reassure him that he's got his own special talents when he starts to feel like he doesn't fit in, and even if they get frustrated behind his back, it's clear that they care about him. Why don't the elves just, you know, make him a bed? One of the things that makes the movie feel heartwarming and Christmasy is that the other elves up at Santa's workshop are generally pretty nice to Buddy.