Review: Home Alone

Macaulay Culkin plays smart-mouthed 8 year-old Kevin who in a moment of anger and feeling unappreciated wishes his family would disappear. The next morning, through a series of mistakes, his entire family leave for their trip to Paris with Kevin still asleep in bed. He has been left home alone! Although it’s all fun and games for him at first, things take a nasty turn when a couple of burglars (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) plan to break into the house. What they don’t know is that Kevin is no ordinary 8 year-old boy. He’s a well-prepared, enterprising and slightly sadistic 8 year-old boy who is going to defend his home no matter what. Catherine O’Hara and John Heard play Kevin’s parents, Gerry Bamman is Kevin’s jerk uncle Frank, Devin Ratray is Kevin’s odious older brother Buzz, and Keiran Culkin plays his weak bladder suffering cousin Fuller. Roberts Blossom turns up as a feared next-door neighbour who may not be all that he is rumoured to be.

 

I never really considered this 1990 Chris Columbus (writer of “The Goonies”, and director of the first two- and in my view best- “Harry Potter” films) flick a Christmas classic growing up, and even now I’d much rather watch “Muppet Christmas Carol”, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, “Christmas Vacation”, “Black Christmas” (the original), or “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”. However, I always remembered having liked it in my pre-teens, and it holds up surprisingly well in 2017 having seen it for the first time in maybe 20 years (I saw it several times in the early 90s). Scripted by the late, kinda great John Hughes (writer-director of “The Breakfast Club”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”) it may not be among my personal Yuletide viewing choices then or now, but it’s still better than a lot of the shit centred around Christmas. It’s funny, not having seen it in at least 20 years, I still knew practically every line and had a smile on my face almost the entire time.

 

I’ll admit some improbabilities really do stop this film from being better than it is. I can accept Kevin’s family leaving him behind accidentally, as there’s so many people running around and someone screws up the head count. Fair enough, I’ll buy that. What I didn’t buy was how thoroughly horrid most of Kevin’s family is towards him. An 8 year-old kid for chrissakes. Yeah, he’s a mouthy little shit, but he’s…an 8 year-old mouthy little shit. I just didn’t believe so many relatives could be so thoroughly detestable towards not only a kid, but a kid they’re related too. Even his mother, played wonderfully well by Catherine O’Hara is initially very cold and mean towards Kevin, though at least in her case he says some truly awful things to her, kid or not it’d hurt her. If you can get over that hurdle, it’ll help you enjoy the film a whole lot more. Once Kevin is home alone, things do definitely pick up (though Keiran Culkin provides early laughs as Fuller, he of the weak bladder and fondness for Pepsi). Implausible or not, the central premise is so irresistible you wonder why it wasn’t done a decade or two earlier with say Gary Coleman. Also, while Kevin sledding down the staircase is one of the single most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen, I don’t doubt it’s plausible that some dumbfuck kid actually tried it at some point.

 

Macaulay Culkin isn’t great, and in fact was much better in “My Girl” and the underrated “The Good Son”. However, he’s a kid in a leading role in a film, and for that he’s pretty decent. He’s also charismatic in a pasty, pale kind of way I guess. One of the highlights comedically is a running gag involving Ralph Foody as a gangster in a movie on TV that Kevin uses to ward off strangers/intruders. To anyone who thinks the climax is inappropriately violent: Go watch a “Road Runner” cartoon sometime and get back to me. It’s amazing to me that Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern were making “Goodfellas” and TV’s “The Wonder Years” respectively, the same year as playing dumbo crooks in this, as this is worlds apart. They’re both terrific here. The scheme of the ‘wet bandits’ is so clever, and yet they’re such bumbling idiots who get bested at every turn by an 8 year-old kid. Look out for an excellent supporting turn by the late Roberts Blossom as a fearsome-looking, notorious neighbour of Kevin’s. He’s perfect casting, and might even get you a little teary-eyed. The best thing about him here is his voice, as it’s softer and more kindly-sounding than you initially expect. This is the guy from “Deranged” for crying out loud, and I bet Blossom enjoyed the change of pace. I’m not sure Columbus gets the best usage out of the late, great John Candy in an uncredited cameo. Still, it’s John Candy. I miss him.

 

This is probably a lot more Chris Columbus than John Hughes, but I think Columbus is pretty underrated, actually as a director. This is a solid Christmas movie, and pretty much a solid movie in general. It’s a bit sweet, a bit sad, a bit funny, a bit violent, and more than a bit unlikely. Great, instantly recognisable music score by John Williams (“Jaws”, “Star Wars”) is a definite highlight, though it might be a bit of an earworm for some.

 

Rating: B