Cultural Gap Film #7: Home Alone

Relevant elements: Macaulay Culkin being precocious, particularly when he slaps on aftershave and yells

Why it resonated: How could America say no to a holiday family film by John Hughes that showcases the most promising child actor of his generation?

General comments on the film:  Maybe it's just Festivus sentimentality, but this movie annoyed me much less than I expected. Because I didn't see it when it came out, I never really got the full Macaulay Culkin experience. In my world, he went straight from Uncle Buck to being an object of gleeful scorn because of his over-cuteness and notoriously difficult behavior, to the point that audiences cheered when he plummeted to his death in The Good Son. I knew this film put him on the map, but the subsequent criticism of Culkin and endless unfunny allusions to the above-mentioned face-slap-and-yell tainted my perception of Home Alone, making me think his performance would be obnoxious and overly child-performer-y. It also didn't help that I knew Joe Pesci was involved, since he sets my teeth on edge in most appearances.


In retrospect, I should have trusted John Hughes more. Yes, there was a little too much direct-to-camera mugging, but Hughes is not one to let too much sugar pile up without a touch of down-to-earth sourness to balance it out. I'm still a little confused about why Kevin's family are so mean-spirited toward him, but the Hughesian suburban Chicago setting was so comfortingly familiar that such quibbles didn't linger very long.


This is by no means a masterpiece of filmmaking, but it's highly professional and perfectly pitched for a broad audience looking for something to put on in the background as they put up holiday decorations. And it makes me wonder what other films I might be misguidedly avoiding....