We now move on, in the month of #Johnuary, to what I believe is John Hughes’ biggest financial success of all his movies, Home Alone. I believe it was the third highest grossing movie of all time, when it was released. It has grossed $476.7 million off a budget of $18 million, which is pretty damn impressive. This film was written and produced by Hughes but was directed by Chris Columbus, who later went on to direct some of the Harry Potter franchise. John Williams also did the score, which is something I will be addressing next week.

This is a film that I know very well and is one of the staples at Christmas. I was watching it anyway for this Christmas so I made the following real time notes for Johnuary whilst I watched it.

• How did they afford the house and the holiday for 9 kids? People probably automatically think it was the dad but I think it was maybe the mum who was the bread winner. She seems by far the more organised one of the pair and I think it’s only her you see paying money to anyone, such as to the pizza guy and offering the airline money to get home (Although… Update… the uncle says in the sequel that Kevin’s dad paid good money for this trip)
• Lots of cool 80s stuff in the kids’ bedrooms, like full size Michael Jordan and Ice -T.
• The house is massive but the TV is absolutely tiny
• There are some very cool songs used in the soundtrack.
• Do the parents seriously fly in business class and leave the kids in coach/economy?!
• Mr Heckles from Friends again! Playing Sgt. Ballsack?! I checked IMDB and his character’s name is actually Officer Balzak.
• Nice cameo from John candy helping to instill the Christmas spirit.
• The score from John Williams really does help to make the film more poignant.

This is arguably the peak of his work (financially probably anyway) but also was the peak of his creativity in some ways perhaps, because after this movie he seemed just try to stick to sequels and other films that recreated the same formula as Home Alone. He didn’t go back to his more character based movies from the 80s. I still think that Home Alone is a great example of John Hughes skirting the boundary of comedy and character development. This film is much more slapstick comedy but there is still a very heartwarming story underlining it, with the old man being reunited with his son. It’s done so well and it really does move me every time I see it. The scene in the church with the O Holy Night hymn is particularly well done. A great film and one we will certainly watch every Christmas.

• Tweet