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National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
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Say what you will about the Vacation movies, you'd be a scrooge or a Jehova's Witness if you didn't secretly watch Christmas Vacation every year to help get into the Christmas Spirit of things. I'm also assuming that every person
who reads this has already seen the movie (if not, put it on your Netflix list and come back here later). So, there's not really any reason to review it with the usual here's-what-happened-next write up you're all so used to on this site. Instead,
I'd like to write about the little bit of Cark Griswold in all of us (except the Jehova's Witnesses).
Christmas Vacation does a great job of really bringing out the anti-hero in Clark Griswold. You see, Clark's just a normal midwestern Dad. He works hard, he gets excited about doing family stuff, and he's really hoping that his Christmas bonus will give him enough to buy a swimming pool for the family.
I say he's the anti-hero, because he's so eager to get things right that he's driving everyone else nuts. He's just like your dad, without all the drinking and abuse.
So, Clark embarks on his personal mission to have the best Christmas any family has ever had. They drive out to the country to cut down their own tree . . . They invite the whole family over to share the holidays with them . . . He takes his son Christmas shopping . . . and he even embarks on putting up several thousand Christmas lights.
Clark's even polite to his uncle Eddie when he pulls his RV to the house unexpectedly. Clark's actually dangerously close to the abyss at this point, but keeps his nose to the grindstone and continues to work towards making this the best Christmas ever in the history of the world, USA.
But Clark begins to learn why the rest of us drink on the holidays. Those Christmas lights that won't work if even a single bulb is loose; the in-laws that are still critical of you for stealing their daughter; the other in-laws who didn't quite end up being as well off as you are; and the stress of trying to buy enough gifts for the whole ungrateful lot.
Clark would still be fine at this point if his bonus check had arrived. He doesn't have enough money to cover the deposit for the pool he put down and unless that check comes through, he's cooked. The stress of it all starts to sink in as Christmas Eve nears. Clark still hasn't received his check, the family is still there and the Christmas dinner's ruined.
And then it happens: instead of getting a lump sum of cash, Cark's bonus was cut back to a membership in the fruit of the month club. Were this movie Titanic, we'd be at the point where the rats start fleeing the ship. Another working stiff has received the UFIA from management. Oh, and then their Christmas tree burns down, a squirrel gets loose and it looks like Uncle Eddie
took Clark a bit too seriously when he said he'd like to have his boss here, wrapped in a bow...
But as bad as it all gets, Clark realizes that Christmas isn't about bonuses or making everything perfect, it's about the spirit of giving and celebrating your own blessings. At least until Eddie brings the boss over tied up and wrapped in a bow. Yeah, it's all happening, but once the angry greedy boss has to face one of the families he's personally bent over the barrel, he has a change of heart and reinstates the bonus. The Griswolds don't even have to break out the car battery and jumper cables.
And in the end, the Griswolds, the boss, and Chicago SWAT team all revel in the glory of Christmas by singing the national anthem to a plastic sleigh that's been rocketed through the sky when all the human waste they've been dumping in the storm drain ignites. Just like Christmas when I was a kid.
-Mark
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Copyright 2006, OnePageWonder.com, the merriest site on the internet
Contact me at mark@onepagewonder.com |
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