Writer(s): John Hughes
Starring: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, and Catherine O'Hara
Like a lot of popular Christmas movies, Home Alone more or
less thrives on complete stupidity: It’s in the plot, where an entire family
somehow forgets an 8-year-old child, leaving him back at home in the States
while they go off to Paris. It’s in the
two dimwitted burglars who not only are outsmarted by a child, but continue to
go after him, despite earning what would be the equivalent of several fatal
injuries. Basically, there’s nary a
scene that goes by that isn’t completely full of stupid.
Yet it works. Despite
the complete lack of intelligence; despite the obligatory and forced sad scene;
despite a screenplay that’s every bit as dumb as almost every single character,
Home Alone somehow manages to be a whole lot of fun.
Macauley Caulkin plays 8-year-old Kevin McAllister, who is
left home alone after his parents, and dozens of other relatives, all somehow
manage to oversleep during a power outage, and in the ensuing rush, completely
forget they have an 8-year-old son. Never
mind how it happens, because it’s every bit as ridiculous (and unbelievable) as
it sounds. All that you need to know, is
that it does.
In a blind frenzy, it isn’t until the plane is up in the air
that Kevin’s mother (Catherine O’Hara) realizes that she has left her son
behind. Meanwhile, Kevin is living life
large at home, eating ice cream and sweets all day, as he absorbs violent
movies on television. He ransacks his
brother’s room, jumps on the bed, and does everything else little children
dream of growing up to be able to do.
But it’s not all fun and games. A couple of hoodlums have targeted his house,
after one of them poses as a policeman and learns that the family will be on
vacation as of the next morning. And
they will stop at nothing to gain entrance into the house, which they are
convinced are full of precious, priceless goodies. Can Kevin prevent them from entering the
premises, or will be end up being brutally slaughtered at the hand of these
dimwits?
Home Alone’s biggest problem is the family, who are all
pretty much irredeemably ugly people, both inside, and out. Kevin’s mother is the only one who ever seems
to care about the entire situation—marvel at the way the rest of the family,
including his own father, would rather just try to shrug off the situation as
if it were merely a garage door left open.
Kevin’s biggest fear seems to be that his family doesn’t love him, and
for the entire movie, it sadly seems that he is on to something.
But even for her caring, his mother still seems like a
cruelly cold woman. Take the beginning,
where she (and the whole family) get mad at Kevin for merely acting like an
8-year-old child—as punishment for ruining several pizzas, she sends him up to
the cold, dark attic, completely alone. What
kind of mother would do that to someone that’s so young? Of course, it ends up being for the sake of
the screenplay (it’s much easier to forget someone in the attic, far away from
everyone else), but it just feels vicious and unnecessary. The family also makes fun of him for not
being able to pack his own suitcase…AT EIGHT YEARS OLD. We only have to spend fifteen minutes with
this family, and even before the major gaffe that leaves a seemingly helpless
child all alone with no hope, we can see where Kevin is coming from.
What Home Alone does best, is by somehow managing to keep
everything interesting and watchable until the final half-hour, when the goons
finally manage to gain access to the McAllister’s house, leading to a non-stop
parade of physical (and cartoonishly funny) violence. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are absolutely
perfect as the two burglars, with Pesci’s tough guy persona (he was, after all,
a legitimate tough guy in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas) being played for
laughs, while Stern is his dimwitted assistant.
I honestly can’t picture a better pairing, and them, along with the
obviousness of Macaulay Culkin’s strong, cutesy performance as Kevin, are what
make this picture what it is (with an assist to Roberts Blossom, as the
obligatory “creepy”, yet misunderstood neighbor).
And just what is Home Alone?
To me, it’s the rare holiday movie that I can sit down to a viewing of
once a year, and never tire of. It’s
that unusual holiday picture that, despite its boundless stupidity and even
unintentional cruelty, perhaps best captures the boundless, carefree excitement
of the holidays.
RECAP: Home Alone is
that one holiday movie that I look forward to watching. It’s certainly not perfect, but no character
that I’ve yet to encounter perfectly encapsulates the carefree wonders of the
holidays quite like Kevin McCallister.
What child hasn’t at one point wished that their parents would
disappear? Of course, Kevin soon learns
that complete freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but by the time that
happens, he’s already left his mark, permanently, on pop culture. Great movie.
RATING: 8/10.
TRAILER
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