When it comes to Christmas, there are some trends that come and go – remember when fidget spinners and adult colouring books were all the rage? – but others become part of the fabric of the season, something that never loses its charm no matter how many times we see, hear or eat it. I mean would Christmas really be Christmas without some pigs-in-blankets, Mariah Carey and yet another rewatch of Home Alone? Of course not, which is why the hubby and I couldn’t resist when our local cinema recently put on a showing of the thirty year old low budget classic.
Regularly picked on by his siblings and cousins, nine-year old Kevin McCallister (McCaulay Culkin) is something of an outcast in his family and his smart-arse attitude regularly pisses of the adults. With the extended McCallister family all preparing for a Christmas vacation in Paris, tensions rise and tempers flare until Kevin gets in a fight with his older brother Buzz and is sent to his room, up on the third floor of the house, wishing that his family would just disappear.
After a storm causes the power to go out, the family wind up sleeping in and chaos ensues. In the rush, a misplaced boarding pass and an inaccurate head count causes the family to leave a certain black sheep at home alone. Realisation doesn’t set in until the family are already airborne and Kevin’s mother desperately tries to book a flight back home.
Believing he has made his family disappear, Kevin celebrates by doing all the things kids love but aren’t allowed to do; bouncing on the bed, going through Buzz’s secret stash of teenage goodies and staying up waaaay past bedtime eating ice cream and watching violent movies. But as the days go by, Kevin starts to realise the importance of family and starts to grow up; overcoming his fear of the basement, shopping for groceries and defending his home from the ‘Wet Bandits’ – a scheming pair of burglars looking strike it lucky whilst most of the street is away for Christmas.
Daniel Stern’s gloriously simple Marv is the perfect counterpart to Joe Pesci’s more intimidating Harry, and the pairing is perfectly cast bringing a hilarious physicality to their roles as the hapless burglars. Pesci, in particular, handles the kids comedy aspect very well despite being particularly well known for his foul-mouthed performances in gritty gangster flicks and crime dramas, and if you’ve seen the ‘Home Alone’ episode of the Netflix series The Movies That Made Us – a must watch series, I might add – then you’ll greatly appreciate the level of restraint that formed Harry’s reactions to Kevin’s boobytraps.
As good as the villains may be, this is McCaulay Culkin’s film and, despite his young age, he expertly carries the film on his young shoulders bringing a cheekiness to the film that is just the right side of endearing, facial expressions that quickly became iconic and expertly delivering an emotional heft that hits you right in the feels when it needs to.
Directed by Chris Columbus, John Hughes’ script is well-paced and a perfect blend of heart and hilarity, nicely building up nicely to the hijinks of the final act and sprinkled with the type of Christmas magic that only comes with a John Williams soundtrack. It’s not hard to see how or why this film is still so beloved all these years later, spawning a franchise that even now is still churning out movies – although perhaps not to such great success.
Although I do watch Home Alone pretty much every Christmas, its magic has dulled a little over the years relegating it to one of those films that you put on in the background or whilst scrolling on your phone but watching it again on the big screen helped to reignite that Christmas spark and remind me just how good this film is and why it has cemented itself as a quintessential part of Christmas tradition.
