Home Alone (1990)

Doesn't really work if you actually spend the time to bother thinking about it, but so long as you don't _Home Alone_ is a pretty good time. There's really no likeable character, and it's honestly pretty mean spirited, but sometimes that's what you might need to defrag over Christmas.

_Final rating:★★★ - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go._

Love this movie. I was 8 when this came out. I remember being so jealous of Kevin, because I wished I could be home alone like that to do whatever I wanted.

It has taken me 30 years to sit down and watch this film and I'm quite glad I finally did. I usually loathe kids movies, and the trails at the time always put me off - but Macauley Culkin is really quite a charmer in this tale of a youngster who is accidentally left at home at Christmas by his family. They have jetted off to Paris leaving him alone facing the unwanted attentions of two would-be burglars (Joe Pesci & Daniel Stern). Initially a bit unsettled, he is soon is his stride using just about every gadget (and critter) in their large family home to make sure he thwarts their thieving intentions. It's really all about the kid - and this one delivers well. The slapstick elements of the plot are designed to raise a smile, never to maim - even if having your head set on fire by a blow torch, or being walloped in the face by an hot iron might do longer term damage than happens here. That's the fun of it, for fun it is - it's a modern day Laurel & Hardy style story with an ending that's never in doubt. It does have a slightly more serious purpose, highlighting loneliness - not just for "Kevin" but his elderly neighbour "Marley" (Roberts Blossom) and it has that lovely scene on the aircraft when mother Catherine O'Hara realises that it wasn't just the garage doors that they forgot to sort out before they left! A great, and instantly recognisable score from maestro John Williams tops it all off nicely.

Of course we watched this more than 20 years ago, but recently took it out of the library to watch again for a couple of reasons. One, it is ostensibly a holiday movie and we were watching a series of them. Also, a friend had just lost a loved pet and needed a silly movie to take her mind away for a couple of hours.

This movie fit the bill. It has several laugh out loud scenes, and mildly amusing material surrounding those scenes. The ensemble cast is fine. Catherine O’Hara is a believable mom and I have liked Daniel Stern ever since he couldn’t understand how a VCR works in City Slickers.

If you are one of those gentle souls like our friend who has difficulty distinguishing between cartoonish fictional violence and reality, you will need to look away a few times.

It won’t make the regular rotation of our traditional holiday movies, but I am glad we fit it in this year.

"Home Alone" gets an enormous amount of mileage out of such a flimsy central idea which simply follows the familiar pattern of behaviour you would expect if an eight year old child was accidently left home alone. He eats junk food and he watches equally junk television programs all day. However, this obviously isn't enough to pad out the already thin story, so screenwriter John Hughes introduces a couple of burglars into the mix to spice the proceedings up a little by having them target the empty houses and robbing them. Of course, they target Kevin's (Macaulay Culkin) house, but the lad is considerably more resourceful than either one of them could have ever anticipated and what now follows is a brilliant sequence of outrageous slapstick set pieces that are great fun and tremendously enjoyable making this the perfect Yule Tide treat which ironically enough can be watched regardless of what time of the year it happens to be.