Home Alone (1990)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Filthy Animals

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Released a little before Thanksgiving in 1990, Home Alone was an anomaly. It wasn't supposed to be such a huge hit. Nobody bet on that. It received mostly tepid reviews, including a solid "two-thumbs-down" from Siskel and Ebert. But it was a hit. It was enormous, grossing $285 million on a budget of $18 million, and landing at #3 of the year, behind only Ghost and Pretty Woman. It handily out-grossed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Hunt for Red October, Total Recall, Die Hard 2, Dick Tracy, Back to the Future Part III, Days of Thunder, and everything else.

Pundits wrote think-pieces trying to figure out why. Could it have something to do with the Bush Administration and its needless Gulf War? Were Americans simply looking for some mindless escape? Or perhaps it was because it was the only movie of its type playing during the holiday season. By the time it came out on video, I, a know-it-all film student in college, was curious. I watched it, and found it to be pretty average, mostly just stupid slapstick. I wrote it off and mostly forgot about it.

Time went on. I started seeing the movie listed among Christmas favorites, Christmas classics. It started becoming many people's all-time favorite Christmas movie, a regular, perennial re-watch. I promised a friend I'd give it another look. After all, I had only seen it on VHS, not an optimal way to watch a movie. And I have learned over the years, that there can be bias for or against a film given the circumstances around its release. Time tends to ease such things.

In Home Alone, the large McCallister prepares to go on vacation, a whole brood of siblings and cousins. The morning of the flight, the family oversleeps and they hurry out the door, doing a quick head-count that accidentally includes a nosy neighbor kid, and not young Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), who gets left behind. This time around I found the set up slightly more plausible, especially followed by scenes of Kevin's mother Kate (Catherine O'Hara) frantically realizing their mistake and doing everything in her power to make it right.

But Kevin doesn't seem to mind so much. He has the run of the place, and freedom at last from his bossy parents and pushy family. He even manages to shop for some groceries. Things would be peachy except for his spooky neighbor, Old Man Marley (Roberts Blossom), rumored to be a murderer, and the pair of bumbling thieves that have been casing the neighborhood: Harry (Joe Pesci, who was in GoodFellas and won an Oscar the same year) and Marv (Daniel Stern). Kevin uses his wits to set up booby traps and deceptions of all kinds, including a terrific scene in which he makes it look like his parents are home and having a dance party. John Candy makes a welcome addition to the movie as a polka musician who helps the frazzled Kate get home. And a young Hope Davis plays a ticket agent in the French airport.

Kevin is a lovable scamp, everything works out just fine, and there are lots of Christmas decorations and festive music. It's hard, maybe during a stressful time of the year, or just a soul-crushing year in general, not to walk away with a smile.