“Kevin, you’re such a disease.”
“You’re what the French call ‘les incompetents’.”
“Kevin, I’m going to feed you to my tarantula.”
That’s just a snippet of what 8-year-old Kevin McCallister has heard all day from his brothers, sisters and cousins as they prepare for their next-day flight to Paris to celebrate Christmas. It’s like the whole family collectively decided to make the boy their verbal punching bag. And sure, maybe Kevin was getting on everyone’s nerves the whole day. But in his mind, he’s completely innocent.
During dinner, though, Kevin’s oldest brother, Buzz, goes one taunt too far. Kevin’s had it. He slams himself into his brother, knocking over the milk and soaking the plane tickets. In the chaos, Kevin’s father doesn’t notice when he accidentally throws one of the tickets into the trash as Kevin’s mother, Kate, marches the boy to his room, leaving Buzz unpunished and Kevin fuming.
“I don’t want to see you again for the rest of my whole life!” Kevin shouts at his family.
“I hope you don’t mean that,” Kate responds. “You’d feel pretty sad if you woke up tomorrow morning, and you didn’t have a family.”
Well, when Kevin wakes up, his whole family is gone. A storm in the night knocked out the power, so they all overslept and had to rush to the airport to make the flight. And in a series of unfortunate events, they accidentally forgot Kevin, leaving him home alone.
Kevin learns that his mother was wrong. He’s happy they’re gone … at least, for a little while. But soon, he starts to miss them—and more than anything, he’d like to have all of them—even Buzz—back.
Especially when some opportunistic burglars think his house is empty and decide to break in.
Lots of things go wrong in order for Kevin to be accidentally left behind while the rest of the family flies to Paris. Midway through the flight, however, Kate realizes the horrible mistake and, for the rest of the film, fights to get home as quickly as possible. To that end, she’s helped by quite a few people who are willing to go out of their way to get her there.
Meanwhile, Kevin’s actually doing pretty well for himself. He learns how to take care of himself, going to the grocery store and doing his laundry, even overcoming his fear of the basement furnace.
However, though Kevin learns a bit of responsibility, he ultimately misses his family dearly—even family members he sometimes argues with. He asks a man if Santa could bring his family back; and he realizes that he has said and done things that were selfish and rude, wishing he could make up with them.
Due to a fictional story by Buzz, Kevin is afraid of his neighbor, Mr. Marley. But when the two eventually talk, he realizes that Mr. Marley is a kind man. The two are able to give each other advice and encourage one another to reconnect with their respective families.
Kevin spends some time in a church, where a choir sings “O Holy Night.” While there, he runs into Mr. Marley, who tells him that church is “the place to be if you’re feeling bad about yourself.” The church contains a nativity scene where Kevin hides at one point. Later, Kevin prays and crosses himself.
Kate tells a man that she’ll make it home to Kevin even if she has to sell her soul to the devil to do so. A fictional movie is titled “Angels with Filthy Souls.”
Kevin finds a Playboy magazine in Buzz’s room before tossing it over his shoulder. Buzz likewise has posters of women in bikinis hanging up in his room. Buzz asks his cousin if French women shave their armpits, and he asks about nude beaches.
The two burglars, Harry and Marv, storm the McCallister house, and Kevin sets up many traps to slow their assault. Some of these traps are minor, with one covering Harry in feathers.
But others, were this not a movie, could be lethal, such as when Harry is treated to a blowtorch to the head. The burglars are shot in the forehead and crotch with a BB gun; fall onto hard concrete after slipping on ice; get hit in the head with an iron and paint cans; step on a nail and broken Christmas ornaments; and other painful pratfalls. Harry brands his hand on a heated metal doorknob. Marv smacks Harry in the chest with a crowbar in trying to kill a spider. At one point, the two get knocked out.
All of these injuries enrage the two would-be thieves, causing them to utter death threats about Kevin, including how they’ll bite off his fingers or do especially bad things to his male anatomy. And when they cannot figure out where Kevin escaped to, Marv casually wonders if Kevin committed suicide. A man’s bandaged hand shows a little blood from an injury.
Buzz tells Kevin a rumor about how Mr. Marley killed his family, as well as half the people on his old neighborhood block, with a snow shovel. Kevin attacks Buzz. In an old black-and-white movie which Kevin frequently plays, a man shoots another with a gun.
The s-word is used once. “H—” is uttered six times. We also hear “a–,” “d–n” and “crap.” God’s name is misused once. Additionally, we hear childish insults such as “idiot” and “puke-breath.”
A man smokes. Someone drinks champagne. A TV show portrays an intoxicated Santa.
Some of Kevin’s relatives say pretty cruel things to him, and Kevin treats them poorly, too.
Kevin steals an item while trying to flee a man, and he runs from a pursuing police officer.
“I made my family disappear,” Kevin McCallister says with a smirk.
Perhaps you’ve had moments in your life when understood exactly how Kevin felt. Something like this: Finally. No more family drama, cruel words or overbearing rules.
But if there’s one thing this 1990 classic teaches us, it’s that families are critically important—no matter how much we might disagree with that sentiment in those moments of anger and strife. Even though having annoying relatives might require enduring such moments, Home Alone ultimately shows how a family truly rooted in love will forgive and endure all things.
Much of what you’ll need to endure in Home Alone, however, is all that comedic violence. At times, the painful shenanigans we witness can feel cringe-inducing. Still, I wonder if the deepest wounds Marv and Harry will carry after their failed siege of Kevin’s house are the bruises to their egos.
On top of that, you’ll hear some mild profanity, too. Still, if you are in the mood for a Joe Pesci film, Home Alone is the tamest you’ll find.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
