Home Alone

It's hard to believe it's been 25 years since Home Alone  came out. Sure, I saw it in the theater as a kid, as did any other kid at the time. But to be reminded of that fact as a now 34 year old man is a bit staggering and only serves to remind me of how old I really am. So, naturally, I look back on the film with a certain degree of nostalgia. But at the same time I have some mixed feelings about the film. On one hand it is a very entertaining, funny, and heartwarming film. But at the same time it also wrecked the career of John Hughes. After this film came out and was a monster hit, that was all Hollywood wanted from the guy. More slapstick and pratfalls, leaving behind the more thoughtful and heartfelt films he had made prior to it in his career. 

The plot of the film is well known by now. Kevin McCallister (played by Macaulay Culkin) is accidentally left home alone when his large family, as well as another horde of relatives, have to leave home in a hurry to travel to Paris for Christmas vacation. When his mother, Kate (played by Catherine O'Hara), realizes her mistake, she struggles to get home to her son. Meanwhile, Kevin has to deal with living on his own and taking care of himself for the first time in his life. He does a remarkably good job of it, even taking on chores such as shopping or laundry. But he also finds joys in things he was previously denied such as enjoying junk food, watching R-rated movies and staying up late to watch The Tonight Show. Things take a turn when he discovers his home is being targeted by two bumbling burglers, Harry (played by Joe Pesci) and Marv (played by Daniel Stern). Determined to protect his house from the intruders, he sets up several elaborate booby traps to try and fend them off in a climactic showdown between Kevin and the two robbers.

I used to have whole sections of this movie memorized. I absolutely loved it as a kid, as did most kids my age. There is so much wish fulfillment in this movie for young kids, it's crazy. We all wanted to ride a toboggan down the steps and out the front door or zip line from the roof to our tree house (if we had a tree house, which I didn't growing up. But my brother and I did try to ride the sled down the steps but the front door wasn't positioned right, much to our disappointment). And what kid wouldn't love to throw two crooks through the trials and tribulations of some rather clever (and rather cruel) booby traps that pummel, burn and maim the two gluttons for punishment, all played for the laugh and delight of the audience? I'll admit I was still laughing this time around, if wincing in pain as well. I suppose life experience would add a layer or two to these scenes from when I was a kid. 

Macaulay Culkin gave a star making performance in the film and was quite adorable and endearing, even if he did mug for the camera a bit much in the film. In fact, the entire film was inspired by a scene in a prior film Culkin made with John Hughes, Uncle Buck. In that film, there is a scene where Culkin is left home alone with his sister and repeatedly question's Buck's girlfriend, who was sent to babysit, through the mail slot before letting her in. It's a fantastic scene and easy to see the genesis of this film in that moment. 

This film also, for better or worse, established the directing career of Chris Columbus. He had been a screenwriter prior and made his directing debut with Adventures of Babysitting, but this was his first big hit. John Hughes wrote the script while also producing the film as well. Prior to this, he was best known for surprisingly heartfelt and thoughtful teen films such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, as well as adult fare such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles and She's Having a Baby. After this film that all changed as his films shifted more towards set-ups for physical comedy, mainly of the pain inflicting slapstick sort, continuing on with two sequels to this film that he wrote, as well as his rendition of Dennis the Menace and it's lowest point being Baby's Day Out, where in which the tyke inflicting all the pain is an infant. To see someone who made so many great films lower himself to such a point is frankly depressing.   

Still, there is a lot of nostalgia in Home Alone for me. It has a lot of heart to it as well as all the pratfalls and slapstick that dominated the later entries and at the center of it is a rather endearing performance by Macaulay Culkin, as well as an equally great one by Catherine O'Hara as his mom desperately trying to get home to her son. It has rightfully gone on to become a holiday favorite and rightly so. Even so, 25 years later, I still can't believe he didn't take even one bite of that macaroni and cheese dinner before he ran off to fight the burglars.