‘Home Alone’ is Actually the Perfect Watch if You’re Literally Home Alone This Christmas

Christmas 2020 is going to be a holiday season unlike any other. With folks staying home for the safety of others, there’s an outside chance that a lot of us will be experiencing the holidays the way little Kevin McAllister famously did: Home Alone.

Yes, the Macaulay Culkin film is a perennial classic, but it is bound to hit differently now that a lot of us — including yours truly – are staring down a grim holiday season all home alone and separated from loved ones. After almost a year of living like this, nerves are raw, and even the slightest nostalgic notion is bound to send someone lunging for the Kleenex. (I am still not over the Nat King Cole needle drop at the end of Dash & Lily Episode 4.).

So should you watch Home Alone if you’re literally going to be home alone this Christmas? How does the legendary tale of holiday season social isolation play if you’re actually forced to be alone? Is the film’s story too flippant or too unintentionally devastating for those of us in a bubble of one for Christmas 2020?

Well, I watched Home Alone, home alone, with the knowledge that I’m not going to have family time this Christmas. And honestly? My emotional reaction to the film was not what I expected at all…

Home Alone is a 1990 film about young Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), the sulky youngest son of an upper class Chicago family. Kevin feels overlooked by his mother, bullied by his older siblings, and stifled by the large family’s plan to fly to Paris for the holidays along with a troop of extended family members. After a meltdown forces Kevin’s mother Kate (Catherine O’Hara) to punish the kid by putting him to bed early, Kevin makes an ominous wish. He wants his family to disappear.

The next morning, a utility line snafu has the family chaotically dashing to the airport. In the hullabaloo, Kate forgets that she left Kevin in the closed-off attic guest room to sleep. And so the family departs for France while Kevin wakes up to an empty house, believing his wish came true.

Now the film would be charming enough if it was just a series of Kevin’s precocious attempts to be “man of the house” while his parents are away, but two bumbling crooks played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern provide an extra layer of menace. Believing the McAllister’s plush house to be deserted, they make a number of attempts to break in, all of which are foiled by Kevin.

Ultimately, Kevin routs the thieves with the help of a surprisingly kind neighbor named Marley (Roberts Blossom). Kate makes it back to Kevin on Christmas morning and the rest of the family follows suit. The ultimate moral of the story? Even when you think you hate your family, you really love them. That, and don’t advertise that you’re vacating your incredibly impressive suburban Chicago home to Joe Pesci.

As a child, Home Alone stood out to me because of the antics. I reveled in Kevin’s clever transformations of household objects and laughed when the villains got their due. However, I also remember being rather haunted by the film. The ominous music, physical threats, and cruel urban myths pinned on Marley aside, the very idea that my mother could forget me was downright disturbing. So I didn’t know what watching the film in full as an adult living alone would do to me. If tiny me was upset watching it in a crowded suburban living room during the holidays ages ago, what would I feel now?

Turns out my big takeaway is that Home Alone is good. It more than stands the test of time and seems to be in the running for the best film in Chris Columbus’s oeuvre. (I suspect the combined genius of John Hughes’s script and Macaulay Culkin’s performance have a lot to do with that.) It’s also fascinatingly cathartic for anyone who has found themselves absolutely on the outs with a large family. Or at least, lost amongst one. For the bulk of Home Alone, I wasn’t upset, scared, sad, or stricken with a wave of heart-wrenching nostalgia. I was simply entertained.

However there is a darker undercurrent flowing through Home Alone and it’s not Joe Pesci’s cruelly glinting grin. It is indeed the idea of loneliness at the holidays. The moments that did strike my heart had to do with the relationship between Kevin and Marley.

Starting to feel overwhelmed and lonely, Kevin goes to church. There Marley reveals not only his kindness, but also his backstory. He, too, lost his temper and drove his family away. Kevin, with the obvious logic of a child, tells Marley to get over his fear and reach out. Together, the two loners on Christmas Eve commiserate on lost chances and loneliness as a church choir sings.

It’s a beautiful moment that is only outdone by Home Alone‘s finale. Reunited with his family on Christmas morning, Kevin looks out his window to discover Marley is welcoming his home, too. The old man gives the little boy an emotional wave.

Home Alone is actually quite a poignant film to watch if you, too, are staying home alone for the holidays. Its many moments of hilarity aside, it’s held together by the understanding that it’s tough to be alone during this time of year. It’s tough to be alone, period. But in the end, all will be well. In the end, we will be together again.

Where to stream Home Alone