2022 Schedule Update:
Introduction
There are some movies that I watch every year whether I want to or not. Movies on television sort of just manifest around us, especially around the holidays. We watch Hocus Pocus over and over in the fall, a movie I have learned to love, and we watch the Home Alone movies in the winter, which I have not. Still, there is something cozy about the familiar. It's why we gravitate towards these kinds of movies when they're on TV. It doesn't matter when the movie started or how much is left, it doesn't matter if we already watched it yesterday, it's just nice to have something seasonal on the television while we fold the laundry or make dinner. They're movies we've watched many hundreds of times in our lives. They have transcended the limits of actual films and simply become ambience.
But they are, in fact, movies. While I am often able to ignore the details and accept the ambience, my dissatisfaction with Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is something that grows more and more each year. I can feel that the movie has transitioned from film, to mindless ambience, back to film, and now morphed into something else entirely. It has become a grim, wicked aura. It is a specter of the holidays that only I can see. Christmas is not the same since my heart closed to Home Alone 2.
For years I have regaled my friends, and occasionally posted online, about how much I don't like Home Alone 2. Some people think it's really funny. Some people think I'm completely right. But I've been urged year after year to put all my feelings together in one place. I have decided that this is the year. This is the year I make "The Home Alone 2 Thread." This is not an analysis thread, but more of a stream of consciousness post of some thoughts I've had over the years.
But before I really get into it, I want to remind folks this is just for fun. I don't think I'm going to say anything too outrageous or extreme. I don't think there's anything I'm about to say that's particularly controversial. They're just Christmas movies, after all.
Part One: We Need to Talk about Kevin
Kevin McCallister is a bad person and I always wish The Wet Bandits would catch and kill him.
The entire McCallister brood, who are rude and numerous, are exorbitantly wealthy monsters. We meet them in Home Alone 1. They plan to bring their curse overseas to debase Europe. Their abode is an opulent suburban mansion, which they inhabit savagely, and it far exceeds the standard of living of most viewers. But it is not enough. They want Paris, the romantic and storied city. Like everything else in this world, it must be theirs. Everything is not enough.
And worst of them all, the most vulgar of all the creatures, is the self-obsessed Kevin McCallister. The Kevin Creature resents his wealth. He resents his clan. He, like them all, seems only invested in personal fulfillment and outward destruction. He wishes them all dead — his only merciful act — so that he can be the horrible young king of the kingdom he hates.
His rule is violent and terrible. His sadism and cruelty is boundless. And what does he want us to do? He wants us to laugh. He wants us to appreciate his art. I cannot cheer at this hateful demon. I must look away. May God be with the Wet Bandits of the world.
Still, there are the faintest shreds of something pitiable in Kevin McCallister. His horrible family exposes him to many a variety of disgraces. He is at the bottom of a pecking order that leaves his unfeathered hide bloody with the marks of dominance. The broken boy is so diminished among his classless upper-class hive of cretins that even I can identify a cloak of sadness over his meager existence. There is the thought that perhaps Kevin may be capable of kindness somehow in a different environment.
Kevin's actions over the course of Home Alone 1 are, without question, questionable. He is Home Alone. He is able to exist outside the context of his family for a short time and define himself as something new. Naturally he chooses decadence and violence, as abuse begets abuse and the powerless crave power, not justice. He parades and pilfers around his family home with a freedom he's never been afforded. The Wet Bandits challenge the freedom he has yet only just begun to grasp. Kevin must assert his dominance over his invaders if he is to remain defined beyond his bloodline. Kevin's assault on the bandits is existential.
Regardless of my feelings towards Kevin McCallister (evil), I believe his actions are largely justified in the film. Kevin wished for freedom and was granted a reprieve from his family. He must prove to himself, and of course God, that he can maintain himself under these circumstances. The pleasure he takes in brutalizing The Bandits is certainly sadistic, but he remains within his right to protect himself and his property. This is his world now. I cannot condemn Kevin for doing what he must do to preserve it.
Home Alone 1 ends on a happy note for Kevin. Over the course of the film he learns that not everyone is his enemy. He reconciles with his mother. He got to live as he wanted and proved he could. Even his foul brother begrudgingly pays him a small tribute. Kevin McCallister begins Home Alone 1 as a pauper, but he ends the film as a prince.
Part Two: Lost in New York
Home Alone 2 gets a lot of flack for being too similar to Home Alone. It has many of the same story beats. But Lost in New York is a radically different story because during these similar story beats we are following a very different Kevin. This is not powerless Pauper Kevin, this is Prince Kevin who knows how to kill and could if he wanted to. This is Kevin in a new environment where his character can truly be tested.
Lost in New York begins with a conflict between Kevin and his brother, who embarrasses him publicly. Kevin responds violently, punching him in the face to indicate he is not to be trifled with. The extreme response alarms his family. They corral around older brother Buzz to indicate Kevin shall not usurp the natural order and so long that he remains a threat to their hierarchy they will remain united against him. This is infuriating to Kevin who is deposed back to the bottom of a kingdom he once ruled. He fumes and bides his time, denouncing their latest holiday conquest as the clan makes plans to invade Florida for another wretched holiday.
Through a series of predictable mishaps where the horrible family fucks up another routine and makes it everyone else's problem, Kevin and his family are separated at the airport. Kevin flies to New York City while his family flies to Miami. It is here that we must pause to respect the different context in which this story begins.
In Home Alone 1, Pauper Kevin becomes king of McCallister Castle for a short time. We can denounce his actions in the first film, but we cannot deny his claim to his ancestral abode. His actions are justifiable in the name of personal protection against outside forces that threaten him. Over the course of this film he embraces the necessity of violence to ensure his own safety in his own home. By the end of the film he loses control and cedes rulership back to his family, but he remains in control of his violent tendencies. Prince Kevin will not tolerate being under foot for long. The taste of the boot is most loathsome when you have worn the boot even once. Kevin has worn the boot.
When Kevin arrives in New York, he is recast from invaded to invader. He arrives in the city hungry for power and freedom and is determined to get it. Provided with infinite economic resources backed by his father's credit card, Kevin selects The Plaza Hotel as his new castle. He overthrows its residents and bends them to subservience.
What's important to remember about The Plaza and its staff is that they have every right to be there. That is their station. It is their job. Kevin is the one who should not be there, and he must bend rules and manipulate people to settle inside. Every act of resistance he faces from the hotel staff is entirely warranted, but it is through these rational actions we are meant to develop an animosity towards them. How dare they stand in the way of Kevin McCallister, the destroyer?
How can we blame the service staff for doing their jobs? How can we deny them the right to resist Kevin's invasion? Are we really to sympathize with Kevin, the interloper, as he admonishes and torments wage workers who depend on this work for their livelihoods? If Kevin's actions in Home Alone 1 were justified because he was being invaded, is the resistance of the service staff not justified in the face of Kevin's own invasion? Every action they take is in accordance with the policy and procedure of their hotel, the laws of the land Kevin is occupying, but Kevin pushes through until he is seated in control of the building.
Once Kevin is indulged and given control of the building and the staff, he degrades and humiliates them at every turn. He makes them fear for their very lives. These people who work here, who have objectively done nothing wrong, are treated with tremendous indecency. This is not Kevin versus his family, this is not Kevin versus bandits. This is rich and spoiled Kevin McCallister, with infinite money he did not earn, defiling and deprecating wage staff who must indulge him for the wages they need to live. This is the horror of how Prince Kevin treats his subjects - with all the hatred in his heart. Under literal threat of death they must serve him.
One of the repeated story beats in Lost in New York from the first film is that Kevin encounters a mysterious older character whom he fears and does not understand. In the first film, he learns that the old man he was afraid of was actually a kindly neighbor who is suffering the burden of a long-held grudge. Kevin is meant to learn from his experience with this man - that kindness and forgiveness is the path to happiness. It is this lesson he internalizes to reconcile with his own family at the end of Home Alone 1. But when Kevin comes face to face with the "Pigeon Lady" in Central Park, he recoils in abject horror and disgust. Kevin cannot extend to her the same learned decency and kindness he gave to the old neighbor and his own family because he does not view her the way he views these people. This woman is hardly human. This woman is homeless.
The Pigeon Lady, who is not even respected enough in Kevin's world to have a name, lives in the park covered in pigeon shit. Kevin fears her until she saves his life, after which he is able to see her utility because she has benefitted him. We learn from The Pigeon Lady in a surprisingly insightful sequence that she has trouble connecting with people because they act as if she is not there. This is something the homeless often describe as the most degrading aspect of their plight - to be treated with such little consideration that they barely exist to people. She says she was not always homeless - that she had a family, and a house, but all of that is gone now because the people closest to her abandoned her. Paralyzed by her heartache and trauma, she lives alone with the birds in the margins of society where nobody cares if she lives or dies.
Kevin listens to her story with vague interest. He affirms that it is her fault she is like this because she refuses to open her heart to people. He claims that he understands what it's like to be homeless because his family doesn't pay attention to him all the time. The poor woman just accepts his lecture, which we are meant to perceive as sound advice, and then the old woman explains that good deeds makeup for bad deeds and good deeds count even more on Christmas. Kevin tells her that he will not forget her and she tells him not to make promises he won't keep.
The ethical structure the old woman proposes is that it is never too late to stop doing bad deeds and start doing good ones. Kevin, who lives selfishly, can make the choice to be selfless at any time. As Kevin sits there in the cold with the shit-covered woman who has no place to live, he meditates on what it might mean to do a good deed. He puts the thought in the woman's head that he will remember her. Any sensible viewer would imminently expect Kevin to be charitable towards his rescuer, but Kevin has no honor. Instead, he resolves that the best good deed he could do is get revenge on The Wet Bandits.
Of course, there is another motivation. There is a toy store who donates their holiday profits to the children's hospital, because it is an American hospital and there is no publicly funded healthcare. The Wet Bandits are robbing the toy store, which will deprive the children's hospital of their donation that they need to keep babies alive. Kevin realizes that part of being rich is giving away the money of the working class while taking credit and reaping the accolades for allowing it to happen.
He lures The Bandits to his rich uncle's New York City penthouse, which is being lavishly renovated while the family vacations in Europe (as usual). He tortures The Wet Bandits and prevents them from stealing the money. Kevin takes credit for preventing the robbery and we are meant to understand that this was his "good deed" that was meant to erase his cruelty.
But what of The Pigeon Lady, whom Kevin swore he would keep in his thoughts and not forget? Well, you see, he gives her a bird ornament. You know, the woman covered in real birds that serve as her only companionship, he gives her a small toy bird. Let it be clear here that Kevin has infinite access to money. He has access to two separate residences - a five star hotel where he is staying and enjoys every luxury and the empty penthouse belonging to his uncle - and he offers no shelter to the woman. He doesn't offer her anything to eat. He doesn't offer to let her come back to the hotel and take a shower. He doesn't even offer her a ride somewhere in his limo. He gives her a toy and leaves her behind forever - because she is homeless in New York City and Kevin lives in a mansion in Chicago.
Kevin is reunited with his family and is cosmically rewarded for his long string of misdeeds and receives a bounty of gifts from the toy store as his actions. Kevin's intensely material existence continues and the rich get richer, but the nameless woman in Central Park stays cold.
Epilogue
This year on Disney+ they released another Home Alone cash-in called "Home Sweet Home Alone", in which they did the only thing they could possibly do to make Kevin worse and turned him into a British boy. They did something else too - something that was supposed to be subversive that landed flat on its face.
In Home Sweet Home Alone, two hard on their luck parents are being forced to sell their home due to their financial difficulties. This is something they hide from even their own children, whose Christmas they are trying to preserve. The couple are played by Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper and are portrayed as entirely affable, good natured people suffering hard times. Their plight is tragic and heartbreaking and the actors who play them are some of the most likable and charming faces imaginable. These "New Bandits" are our sympathetic leads. The New Bandits discover a box of old dolls in their house that have been in the family and find one with an unusual imperfection. They wonder if they might be able to sell them to give their kids a better Christmas.
The "Kevin" character, whose name is not Kevin but I will continue to call him Kevin, is a repugnant snot who constantly roasts everyone in his family because he hates everyone so damn much. To this Kevin, life is a dreadful stage show for him to jeer and boo from the comfort of the palace he lives in with his international family. He ends up at an open house for the home of the new bandits where Rob Delaney's character playfully denies New Kevin a can of soda when he demands one. Kevin's eyes fill with rage as he plots his revenge and he swipes something from the home to punish his lessers. The world belongs to him, don't they know?
After the open house, the couple discovers that the doll with the imperfection is a legendary collector's item worth $200,000 - a huge amount of money that could turn around their fortunes and save their family home. But when they rush to the box to retrieve the doll - it's gone! Horrible Kevin has stolen the doll! He knows not what he's done, but his quest to harm those around him for any perceived slight has succeeded better than he ever imagined.
Desperate to reclaim the doll and save their family and their home, the couple attempts to reclaim the doll from New Kevin. He Home Alones the shit out of them, punishing them with gruesome acts of extreme violence. In the original films, The Wet Bandits made no concessions towards wanting to murder Kevin. Harry literally says he's going to bite Kevin's fingers off in Home Alone 1. They are going to shoot him under a bridge in Home Alone 2. The Wet Bandits pose a severe and lethal threat to Kevin. But the New Bandits? They are just a poor couple trying to take back something that was stolen from them. And Rich British Kevin punishes them for it most horrendously and violently.
This movie understands something about Home Alone, and that's that Kevin McCallister is evil and hates the lower class. But what it wrongfully assumes is that this is why we watch it. Home Sweet Home Alone is more of an honest take on Home Alone than I'd expect and in being so honest it explains what is so perverse about Kevin McCallister and his behavior. Home Sweet Home Alone is the mask-off movie - but I have seen through the mask for years. I have glared through its eye holes at the dark, lifeless pits behind them and seen the deep hollow wickedness of Kevin McCallister for years. I did not need Home Sweet Home Alone to spell it out for me.
The "twist" of the movie is that New Kevin did not steal the doll. He stole a can of soda. The doll was in the house all along. It has a happy ending and everyone becomes friends. The father willingly gives New Kevin a can of soda. Kevin always gets his way. The rich get richer and the rest freeze in the park.
---
Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas, readers. May you hold as much hate in your heart for Kevin McCallister as he does for you and have the courage to strike him down should you ever meet one cold night in Central Park. Peace and love to all.
Introduction
There are some movies that I watch every year whether I want to or not. Movies on television sort of just manifest around us, especially around the holidays. We watch Hocus Pocus over and over in the fall, a movie I have learned to love, and we watch the Home Alone movies in the winter, which I have not. Still, there is something cozy about the familiar. It's why we gravitate towards these kinds of movies when they're on TV. It doesn't matter when the movie started or how much is left, it doesn't matter if we already watched it yesterday, it's just nice to have something seasonal on the television while we fold the laundry or make dinner. They're movies we've watched many hundreds of times in our lives. They have transcended the limits of actual films and simply become ambience.
But they are, in fact, movies. While I am often able to ignore the details and accept the ambience, my dissatisfaction with Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is something that grows more and more each year. I can feel that the movie has transitioned from film, to mindless ambience, back to film, and now morphed into something else entirely. It has become a grim, wicked aura. It is a specter of the holidays that only I can see. Christmas is not the same since my heart closed to Home Alone 2.
For years I have regaled my friends, and occasionally posted online, about how much I don't like Home Alone 2. Some people think it's really funny. Some people think I'm completely right. But I've been urged year after year to put all my feelings together in one place. I have decided that this is the year. This is the year I make "The Home Alone 2 Thread." This is not an analysis thread, but more of a stream of consciousness post of some thoughts I've had over the years.
But before I really get into it, I want to remind folks this is just for fun. I don't think I'm going to say anything too outrageous or extreme. I don't think there's anything I'm about to say that's particularly controversial. They're just Christmas movies, after all.
Part One: We Need to Talk about Kevin
Kevin McCallister is a bad person and I always wish The Wet Bandits would catch and kill him.
The entire McCallister brood, who are rude and numerous, are exorbitantly wealthy monsters. We meet them in Home Alone 1. They plan to bring their curse overseas to debase Europe. Their abode is an opulent suburban mansion, which they inhabit savagely, and it far exceeds the standard of living of most viewers. But it is not enough. They want Paris, the romantic and storied city. Like everything else in this world, it must be theirs. Everything is not enough.
And worst of them all, the most vulgar of all the creatures, is the self-obsessed Kevin McCallister. The Kevin Creature resents his wealth. He resents his clan. He, like them all, seems only invested in personal fulfillment and outward destruction. He wishes them all dead — his only merciful act — so that he can be the horrible young king of the kingdom he hates.
His rule is violent and terrible. His sadism and cruelty is boundless. And what does he want us to do? He wants us to laugh. He wants us to appreciate his art. I cannot cheer at this hateful demon. I must look away. May God be with the Wet Bandits of the world.
Still, there are the faintest shreds of something pitiable in Kevin McCallister. His horrible family exposes him to many a variety of disgraces. He is at the bottom of a pecking order that leaves his unfeathered hide bloody with the marks of dominance. The broken boy is so diminished among his classless upper-class hive of cretins that even I can identify a cloak of sadness over his meager existence. There is the thought that perhaps Kevin may be capable of kindness somehow in a different environment.
Kevin's actions over the course of Home Alone 1 are, without question, questionable. He is Home Alone. He is able to exist outside the context of his family for a short time and define himself as something new. Naturally he chooses decadence and violence, as abuse begets abuse and the powerless crave power, not justice. He parades and pilfers around his family home with a freedom he's never been afforded. The Wet Bandits challenge the freedom he has yet only just begun to grasp. Kevin must assert his dominance over his invaders if he is to remain defined beyond his bloodline. Kevin's assault on the bandits is existential.
Regardless of my feelings towards Kevin McCallister (evil), I believe his actions are largely justified in the film. Kevin wished for freedom and was granted a reprieve from his family. He must prove to himself, and of course God, that he can maintain himself under these circumstances. The pleasure he takes in brutalizing The Bandits is certainly sadistic, but he remains within his right to protect himself and his property. This is his world now. I cannot condemn Kevin for doing what he must do to preserve it.
Home Alone 1 ends on a happy note for Kevin. Over the course of the film he learns that not everyone is his enemy. He reconciles with his mother. He got to live as he wanted and proved he could. Even his foul brother begrudgingly pays him a small tribute. Kevin McCallister begins Home Alone 1 as a pauper, but he ends the film as a prince.
Part Two: Lost in New York
Home Alone 2 gets a lot of flack for being too similar to Home Alone. It has many of the same story beats. But Lost in New York is a radically different story because during these similar story beats we are following a very different Kevin. This is not powerless Pauper Kevin, this is Prince Kevin who knows how to kill and could if he wanted to. This is Kevin in a new environment where his character can truly be tested.
Lost in New York begins with a conflict between Kevin and his brother, who embarrasses him publicly. Kevin responds violently, punching him in the face to indicate he is not to be trifled with. The extreme response alarms his family. They corral around older brother Buzz to indicate Kevin shall not usurp the natural order and so long that he remains a threat to their hierarchy they will remain united against him. This is infuriating to Kevin who is deposed back to the bottom of a kingdom he once ruled. He fumes and bides his time, denouncing their latest holiday conquest as the clan makes plans to invade Florida for another wretched holiday.
Through a series of predictable mishaps where the horrible family fucks up another routine and makes it everyone else's problem, Kevin and his family are separated at the airport. Kevin flies to New York City while his family flies to Miami. It is here that we must pause to respect the different context in which this story begins.
In Home Alone 1, Pauper Kevin becomes king of McCallister Castle for a short time. We can denounce his actions in the first film, but we cannot deny his claim to his ancestral abode. His actions are justifiable in the name of personal protection against outside forces that threaten him. Over the course of this film he embraces the necessity of violence to ensure his own safety in his own home. By the end of the film he loses control and cedes rulership back to his family, but he remains in control of his violent tendencies. Prince Kevin will not tolerate being under foot for long. The taste of the boot is most loathsome when you have worn the boot even once. Kevin has worn the boot.
When Kevin arrives in New York, he is recast from invaded to invader. He arrives in the city hungry for power and freedom and is determined to get it. Provided with infinite economic resources backed by his father's credit card, Kevin selects The Plaza Hotel as his new castle. He overthrows its residents and bends them to subservience.
What's important to remember about The Plaza and its staff is that they have every right to be there. That is their station. It is their job. Kevin is the one who should not be there, and he must bend rules and manipulate people to settle inside. Every act of resistance he faces from the hotel staff is entirely warranted, but it is through these rational actions we are meant to develop an animosity towards them. How dare they stand in the way of Kevin McCallister, the destroyer?
How can we blame the service staff for doing their jobs? How can we deny them the right to resist Kevin's invasion? Are we really to sympathize with Kevin, the interloper, as he admonishes and torments wage workers who depend on this work for their livelihoods? If Kevin's actions in Home Alone 1 were justified because he was being invaded, is the resistance of the service staff not justified in the face of Kevin's own invasion? Every action they take is in accordance with the policy and procedure of their hotel, the laws of the land Kevin is occupying, but Kevin pushes through until he is seated in control of the building.
Once Kevin is indulged and given control of the building and the staff, he degrades and humiliates them at every turn. He makes them fear for their very lives. These people who work here, who have objectively done nothing wrong, are treated with tremendous indecency. This is not Kevin versus his family, this is not Kevin versus bandits. This is rich and spoiled Kevin McCallister, with infinite money he did not earn, defiling and deprecating wage staff who must indulge him for the wages they need to live. This is the horror of how Prince Kevin treats his subjects - with all the hatred in his heart. Under literal threat of death they must serve him.
One of the repeated story beats in Lost in New York from the first film is that Kevin encounters a mysterious older character whom he fears and does not understand. In the first film, he learns that the old man he was afraid of was actually a kindly neighbor who is suffering the burden of a long-held grudge. Kevin is meant to learn from his experience with this man - that kindness and forgiveness is the path to happiness. It is this lesson he internalizes to reconcile with his own family at the end of Home Alone 1. But when Kevin comes face to face with the "Pigeon Lady" in Central Park, he recoils in abject horror and disgust. Kevin cannot extend to her the same learned decency and kindness he gave to the old neighbor and his own family because he does not view her the way he views these people. This woman is hardly human. This woman is homeless.
The Pigeon Lady, who is not even respected enough in Kevin's world to have a name, lives in the park covered in pigeon shit. Kevin fears her until she saves his life, after which he is able to see her utility because she has benefitted him. We learn from The Pigeon Lady in a surprisingly insightful sequence that she has trouble connecting with people because they act as if she is not there. This is something the homeless often describe as the most degrading aspect of their plight - to be treated with such little consideration that they barely exist to people. She says she was not always homeless - that she had a family, and a house, but all of that is gone now because the people closest to her abandoned her. Paralyzed by her heartache and trauma, she lives alone with the birds in the margins of society where nobody cares if she lives or dies.
Kevin listens to her story with vague interest. He affirms that it is her fault she is like this because she refuses to open her heart to people. He claims that he understands what it's like to be homeless because his family doesn't pay attention to him all the time. The poor woman just accepts his lecture, which we are meant to perceive as sound advice, and then the old woman explains that good deeds makeup for bad deeds and good deeds count even more on Christmas. Kevin tells her that he will not forget her and she tells him not to make promises he won't keep.
The ethical structure the old woman proposes is that it is never too late to stop doing bad deeds and start doing good ones. Kevin, who lives selfishly, can make the choice to be selfless at any time. As Kevin sits there in the cold with the shit-covered woman who has no place to live, he meditates on what it might mean to do a good deed. He puts the thought in the woman's head that he will remember her. Any sensible viewer would imminently expect Kevin to be charitable towards his rescuer, but Kevin has no honor. Instead, he resolves that the best good deed he could do is get revenge on The Wet Bandits.
Of course, there is another motivation. There is a toy store who donates their holiday profits to the children's hospital, because it is an American hospital and there is no publicly funded healthcare. The Wet Bandits are robbing the toy store, which will deprive the children's hospital of their donation that they need to keep babies alive. Kevin realizes that part of being rich is giving away the money of the working class while taking credit and reaping the accolades for allowing it to happen.
He lures The Bandits to his rich uncle's New York City penthouse, which is being lavishly renovated while the family vacations in Europe (as usual). He tortures The Wet Bandits and prevents them from stealing the money. Kevin takes credit for preventing the robbery and we are meant to understand that this was his "good deed" that was meant to erase his cruelty.
But what of The Pigeon Lady, whom Kevin swore he would keep in his thoughts and not forget? Well, you see, he gives her a bird ornament. You know, the woman covered in real birds that serve as her only companionship, he gives her a small toy bird. Let it be clear here that Kevin has infinite access to money. He has access to two separate residences - a five star hotel where he is staying and enjoys every luxury and the empty penthouse belonging to his uncle - and he offers no shelter to the woman. He doesn't offer her anything to eat. He doesn't offer to let her come back to the hotel and take a shower. He doesn't even offer her a ride somewhere in his limo. He gives her a toy and leaves her behind forever - because she is homeless in New York City and Kevin lives in a mansion in Chicago.
Kevin is reunited with his family and is cosmically rewarded for his long string of misdeeds and receives a bounty of gifts from the toy store as his actions. Kevin's intensely material existence continues and the rich get richer, but the nameless woman in Central Park stays cold.
Epilogue
This year on Disney+ they released another Home Alone cash-in called "Home Sweet Home Alone", in which they did the only thing they could possibly do to make Kevin worse and turned him into a British boy. They did something else too - something that was supposed to be subversive that landed flat on its face.
In Home Sweet Home Alone, two hard on their luck parents are being forced to sell their home due to their financial difficulties. This is something they hide from even their own children, whose Christmas they are trying to preserve. The couple are played by Rob Delaney and Ellie Kemper and are portrayed as entirely affable, good natured people suffering hard times. Their plight is tragic and heartbreaking and the actors who play them are some of the most likable and charming faces imaginable. These "New Bandits" are our sympathetic leads. The New Bandits discover a box of old dolls in their house that have been in the family and find one with an unusual imperfection. They wonder if they might be able to sell them to give their kids a better Christmas.
The "Kevin" character, whose name is not Kevin but I will continue to call him Kevin, is a repugnant snot who constantly roasts everyone in his family because he hates everyone so damn much. To this Kevin, life is a dreadful stage show for him to jeer and boo from the comfort of the palace he lives in with his international family. He ends up at an open house for the home of the new bandits where Rob Delaney's character playfully denies New Kevin a can of soda when he demands one. Kevin's eyes fill with rage as he plots his revenge and he swipes something from the home to punish his lessers. The world belongs to him, don't they know?
After the open house, the couple discovers that the doll with the imperfection is a legendary collector's item worth $200,000 - a huge amount of money that could turn around their fortunes and save their family home. But when they rush to the box to retrieve the doll - it's gone! Horrible Kevin has stolen the doll! He knows not what he's done, but his quest to harm those around him for any perceived slight has succeeded better than he ever imagined.
Desperate to reclaim the doll and save their family and their home, the couple attempts to reclaim the doll from New Kevin. He Home Alones the shit out of them, punishing them with gruesome acts of extreme violence. In the original films, The Wet Bandits made no concessions towards wanting to murder Kevin. Harry literally says he's going to bite Kevin's fingers off in Home Alone 1. They are going to shoot him under a bridge in Home Alone 2. The Wet Bandits pose a severe and lethal threat to Kevin. But the New Bandits? They are just a poor couple trying to take back something that was stolen from them. And Rich British Kevin punishes them for it most horrendously and violently.
This movie understands something about Home Alone, and that's that Kevin McCallister is evil and hates the lower class. But what it wrongfully assumes is that this is why we watch it. Home Sweet Home Alone is more of an honest take on Home Alone than I'd expect and in being so honest it explains what is so perverse about Kevin McCallister and his behavior. Home Sweet Home Alone is the mask-off movie - but I have seen through the mask for years. I have glared through its eye holes at the dark, lifeless pits behind them and seen the deep hollow wickedness of Kevin McCallister for years. I did not need Home Sweet Home Alone to spell it out for me.
The "twist" of the movie is that New Kevin did not steal the doll. He stole a can of soda. The doll was in the house all along. It has a happy ending and everyone becomes friends. The father willingly gives New Kevin a can of soda. Kevin always gets his way. The rich get richer and the rest freeze in the park.
---
Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas, readers. May you hold as much hate in your heart for Kevin McCallister as he does for you and have the courage to strike him down should you ever meet one cold night in Central Park. Peace and love to all.
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