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How Home Alone Embodies All Our Christmas Fears
Home Alone is a 90s classic. During a stressful holiday, young Kevin McCallister is left behind by accident while his parents and siblings fly to France. Due to falling trees messing with the phones, no one can reach him. Robbers in the meantime want to rob his house, and Kevin plans to combine offense with his defense. He creates an array of traps that are fairly sadistic but Kevin still has to keep fighting. Since then, the movie has become a Christmas event.
Obviously, the movie wouldn’t be plausible in the modern-day. With smartphones and the Internet, the family would have gotten in touch with Kevin much earlier, and you would hope the police would be more on the ball than they are in this film. One commercial even pointed this out, with Kevin’s grown-up actor Macauley Culkin reprising the role to show that smart devices that invade our homes can help us stay organized and in contact with others.
Home Alone is still rewatchable and relevant regardless of changing technology. I argue it’s a quintessential Christmas movie because it embodies all of our fears about the holidays. It also addresses them, and how to face them.
