Christmas Vacation (again...)

No this isn't a review of a secret reboot of Christmas Vacation - sorry, the moose outside should have told you this is just a re-watch on my part. I’ve seen this film several times, but decided to introduce it to my kids (now six and eight years old). This put me in a closer than ever empathetic point of view with Clark Griswold.

Does the film still work? Sure. The original Vacation is an 80’s classic and reflected many things our family felt about our own vacations – thankfully we travelled in a cool chevy van with wall to wall carpeting instead of a metallic green station wagon truckster thing. But even though the film works, it’s a long way from great.

It’s biggest problem is a weak script – which is hard to say about a John Hughes script, because of my deep respect and admiration for so much of his work. There are numerous strong, funny and iconic moments. Clark’s goals are noble. His love of family and desire for the perfect Christmas make him very lovable. There’s a clear bad guy in Clark’s boss, however thin and cartoonish, well played by 80’s mainstay, Brian Doyle-Murray. 

The kids, a young Johnny Galecki and teen-aged Juliette Lewis, do fine with what they’re given and Beverly D’Angelo is wonderfully doting in her almost exclusively reactive role.

One weird set of players is the next door neighbors, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who apparently doesn’t age, and Nicholas Guest. You get what they’re about as yuppies, but, again, with so little to do other than huff and puff about the big doof Clark, they’re just not that interesting.

So why does the film work? Mostly because of its motif; Christmas films have a soft landing spot if they can just pull on some familiar themes.  Chevy Chase displaying some of the last of his charm that made him, for almost a decade, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, doesn’t hurt either. Hughes shows up just enough times in his small bits of magic to remind you of why you love what he does and thinks of family.

Yes, Uncle Eddie is back. God help us all...

If you’ve invested in the first two Vacation films, this one will probably work for you. There’s enough fun and familiarity to make it sing. It’s more of a stocking stuffer than a show-stopping end of Christmas gift, but it delivers.