Not necessarily the best movies ever made, but these are twenty of my favorites, in no particular order.  Each post for the next twenty days will feature a brief discussion of one film (though one or two days will have multiple posts to make up for absences).

Post 20: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989 dir. Jeremiah Chechnik)

This movie shouldn’t work, but still it endures and Thank God. Through sheer willpower, dedication, and cultural significance, Christmas Vacation survives and thrives. Much like the film’s story, it sweats persistence in the face of absolute chaos.

Thirty-two years ago when it premiered the film performed well but was dismissed as only occasionally funny. On the first day of this twenty day review I discussed Spielberg’s 1941 and how hindsight has served it well. The same is true here. What no one in 1989 took into account, I think, was just how relatable the film’s family situation actually is to nearly every audience member.

Yes it is exaggerated (I hope) for comedic effect, but at its heart is an amusing truth about absurd family holiday traditions and bemused tight-lipped tolerance. So when Clark (Chevy Chase) turns to Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), deadpan, and asks his wife, “Have you checked our shitters, honey?” we get the joke and think about the family members who are our Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid). Or when Audrey (Juliette Lewis) gives passive-aggressive attitude to Clark and asks, “We’re not driving all the way out here just so you can get one of those stupid ties with Santa Clauses on it are we, dad?” She’s not wrong (Clark already has one of those ties, but you just know he’s thinking about it), and I can nod and smile and remember second-guessing my father on his diverted motives.

John Hughes wrote the film and I can tell, at times, that he really enjoyed writing banter between disparate characters; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987), his best film, is a great example. Here he writes an absolutely hilarious scene between Clark and Eddie. It’s just the two of them, standing in the living room, admiring the Christmas tree. Their perspectives are entirely opposite but the dialogue plays off of each other so well, especially in the performances, that Eddie never understands just how exasperated Clark really is with him. It’s a great scene and the final punch-line lands, not an easy feat, just as Clark chokes on his eggnog.

My favorite line? Right as Eddie arrives Clarks turns to him and tells him, “If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet I couldn’t be more surprised than I am right now.” Innocent, sarcastic deflection of honest emotions…behavior that is, at times, truly family.

Christmas Vacation embraces the audience and invites us to laugh with its characters not at them, and that is the film’s enduring strength.