Christmas Vacation: Comedy amid tragedy on Christmas Eve

When Christmas is around the corner, there is a buzz in the air. Plans are made, wishes are exchanged and smiles are ever present. It is a season to be spent surrounded by family members and other near-and-dear ones who care about you. Everyone is happy and very little can go wrong because the general mood is that of merriment. But what can go wrong will go wrong. That is the premise of the National Lampoon film Christmas Vacation.

Clark is the patriarch of the nuclear Griswold family. His parents and in-laws are to visit his house for the holidays and he plans to throw the best possible celebration for the benefit of his family. He gets his wife and children involved by dragging them off to the countryside to chop down and bring back a Christmas tree in the hope that it will bring the authenticity of Christmas to the family and draw them closer together. His efforts carry on as he decorates the exterior of his house with 25,000 lights and places an order for a swimming pool to be installed in his backyard as a surprise gift for his family. Unfortunately, he does not receive the expected Christmas bonus to cover the expenses of the swimming pool, the decorative lights do not seem to work and the Christmas tree is a disaster. To add to the tension, the family is unexpectedly visited by Cousin Eddie and his family and the senile Aunt Bethany and her husband Uncle Lewis which wrecks havoc upon the plans Clark had for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Vacation was written by John Hughes and directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik. It was released in the year 1989 and is the third film in the Vacation series produced by National Lampoon. The film stars Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki. It is a comedy film set to the theme of Christmas.

Although the film is about Christmas with plenty of talk about family and festivities, the focus of the film is on the dire situations of the ill-fated protagonist. The situations are bizarre but believable. The condition goes from bad to worse as the film progresses with Clark becoming desperate over things not going the way he planned them. His neighbours also seem to share in his unwanted fate, if not worse. Although it would be assumed that family is important during the festive season and Clark constantly reiterates that he wants it to be a special event for his family, he grows increasingly annoyed and agitated with the antics of his relatives as the film progresses. His eventual meltdown is hilarious as are the unthinkable situations that get him there.

Chevy Chase as the protagonist is excellent. He is at the height of his powers as a humorist and his comedic timing is impeccable. Whether it is a hot-blooded rant or a nervous mumbling, his ability to deliver his dialogues as required is quite impressive.

The film is quite hilarious on the whole. It is less about Christmas and more about unfortunate instants occurring at inconvenient timings. It is quite a good film but it does not have the warm feeling of the holiday that classic Christmas films are expected to have.

Noel: 5 stories with no Christmas connection

December brings in an excellent spirit of cheerfulness and joy because of the impending end of the year and the merry festival of Christmas. It is a festival that is probably celebrated all over the world with the belief that people forgive and forget during the festive season to spread happiness and good tidings. Hollywood follows suit during the festive season with films about Christmas always having a sense of happiness and warmth to share with its audience.

Rose is a middle-aged woman who lives alone spare for her hospitalised mother. She is a divorcee who moved into her mother’s house after her marriage ended followed by the death of her father and her mother being struck with Alzheimer’s disease. She is about to spend Christmas Eve by herself but is invited to dinner by a young and handsome colleague from her workplace. Despite being attracted to him, she refuses his advances later in the night and decides to bring in Christmas by her mother’s bedside. She meets a young Hispanic girl named Nina who is having her own trouble with her jealous fiancé Mike while doubts of pregnancy loom in her head. Mike in turn is followed around by an old waiter named Artie who believes that Mike is the reincarnation of his dead wife. Lastly, Jules is a young man who is ready to cause harm to himself in the hope that he will be admitted to the hospital Rose’s mother is in because it was the location for his fondest Christmas memory ever.

Noel was written by David Hubbard and directed by Chazz Palminteri. It is a drama film with the theme of Christmas which was released in the year 2004 and stars Susan Sarandon, Penelope Cruz, Paul Walker, Alan Arkin and Marcus Thomas. An important supporting role is performed by Robin Williams.

For a Christmas-themed film, it is uncharacteristically depressing. The filmmakers opted to make a film with reality forming the core. The characters and the situations were meant to feel real and not come across as made up stories. However, a Christmas film is expected to have a cheerful spirit. This film has none of it. It is expected to give the audience a warm and fuzzy feeling and provide them with hope. Unfortunately this film lacks that panache. In fact, even the attempt to make a realistic film can be considered a fail. For one, it is difficult to believe a person is so delusional as to think of young men as his reincarnated wife every Christmas and hope that they would forgive him for his mistakes. Secondly, the character of a young Charlie is meant to come across as Rose’s figment of imagination at the end of the film. It would be impossible for Rose to be able to picture Charlie in his youthful avatar considering she has never seen him before even as his present aged self. If she does know what Charlie looks like presently, she should have been surprised to have met him as a young man considering he appears to be her age in her imagination when he is in fact decades older than her.

The storyline has no ebbs and surges. There are multiple stories which are forcefully woven together to find a connection when there isn’t one. Most of the stories have a beginning, but no conflict, followed by an inconsequential ending. This film is not good; especially if one is looking to get into the Christmas spirit.

A Christmas Story: All I want for Christmas

If there was something you wanted more than anything else in the world, wouldn’t you try everything you could to get it? Especially if it was Christmas and you felt that you have been nice enough to deserve it! But as a child it becomes difficult to convince your parents to buy you that exciting toy you really want. Such is the case in the 1983 film A Christmas Story which was directed by Bob Clark.

Ralphie is a well behaved nine year old boy who has been a good kid all year long and wants only one thing for Christmas: a Red Ryder BB Gun with a compass in the stock and “this thing which tells time”. Unfortunately for Ralphie, he faces strong objection from everyone he tries to convince to get him the gun which includes his parents, his school teacher and even Santa Claus at the mall, and all this because they are afraid that he will shoot his eye out. Ralphie is adamant to have his Red Ryder BB Gun and tries his level best to convince his parents to get it for him by being a good kid in the days leading up to Christmas. Unfortunately for Ralphie, a few incidents involving his friends’ mischief, a run in with a couple of bullies and a handful of episodes where he is heard cursing dent his hopes of ever seeing his beloved Red Ryder BB Gun. Somehow Ralphie must try and rescue the situation if he is going to have his wish fulfilled this Christmas.

The film is riddled with creative styles in the execution. The film has been made to seem as a live-action cartoon film with the use of sound effects which are native to cartoon shows. There is also use of cutaways and transitions in the format that is witnessed in a cartoon show, thus lending to the intended style. There are many subplots in the main story which bring about comical effects for example Ralphie’s fathers winning of a lamp shaped like a leg which his mother disapproves of or the ‘triple dog dare’ which is known among Ralphie and his friends and eventually leads to one of his friends freezing his tongue to a lamppost. Overall, there are plenty of instances of comedic relief during the course of the film.

The film is considered a classic Christmas movie. The only problem which is always overlooked when it comes to this film is the reinforcement of materialism. The story portrays a child who is desperate to receive a desired present in the holiday season which unfortunately reiterates the idea that getting gifts are crucial for someone to be happy during the festive season. It is abysmal that a film which encourages materialism has been hailed as a great especially after it wipes out all the good work that other films and documentaries do in highlighting the idea of giving back to those in need which should be the true message sent out for the festive season.

Albeit the film has plenty of creative inputs and a unique style, a major problem with the film is that it lacks a good entertainment value; and a film doesn’t even need a good, deep message for that!

It's A Wonderful Life: A true embodiment of the spirit of Christmas

Everyone witnesses a time when they feel absolutely helpless and dejected because of some or the other situation. Quite often, at times such as these, we imagine how easy it would have been if we were incredibly rich, or if we just fell off the face of the Earth and had no troubles. In absolutely dire situations you also here of people wishing they had never been born so as to have not come across any trouble at all. A similar premise forms the beginning of the story of It’s A Wonderful Life, the 1946 classic Christmas themed film directed by Frank Capra.

A consortium of angels in Heaven is discussing a situation on Earth which needs their attention. They decide to send a second-class angel down to Earth to deal with the problem. Before they send him down, they brief him on the person in question who is George Bailey. George was a good man throughout his life. He sacrificed many of his personal hopes and dreams for the happiness of others. At a young age he showed great courage when he saved his brother from drowning and lost partial hearing in one ear. He also helped a man he worked for when he stopped him from carelessly mixing poison into his packaged bottles. Later on, he had plans of travelling around Europe. But these were cut short when the passing away of his father required him to take over the family business to stop it from falling in the hands of a snobbish old man who wanted nothing but profits for himself. As a young man he helped out many people by sanctioning loans which would help them build houses and start new businesses. He even handed money to his brother that was saved up for his own education in lieu of his brother getting a good education. When his brother completed his studies, George allowed him to follow his dreams and continued taking care of the business in the same old town instead of forcing his brother to do so. George eventually settled down to marry and have children with his childhood sweetheart. On Christmas Eve, when a tax examination is eminent, George realises that his uncle misplaced 8,000 dollars of the business funds. Realising that this will mean certain imprisonment, George decides to take the blame on himself and feels downtrodden. He finds himself standing on a bridge and contemplating suicide so his family can receive the money from his insurance policy when his guardian angel Clarence Odbody is sent down to help him.

The film is a classic inspirational tale. The final outcome and how George finds his way out of his troubles is what makes the entire film come together perfectly. The beauty in the film is the course which it takes from a boy being ready to sacrifice life and limb who grows into a young man ready to give up on his dreams, eventually maturing into an adult who looks out for people around him and is somehow afflicted by financial troubles and is helped out in the most miraculous way by the people who love him.

Although the style of dramatised acting and melodramatic situations does seem to be out on a limb, it works perfectly well for the film since the sordid sweetness in the end becomes the highlight of the film. The dialogues are of an archaic and colloquial form of English which employs slang at times but fits well into the nature of the film. The background scoring also does seem to dramatise but isn’t overtly misused.

The film and its story are a perfect sample of living a simple but honest life. The film is also an embodiment of the spirit of Christmas which is why the film is synonymous with the holiday season. As a film, it has its flaws and may not appeal to those who are slow to forgive the overly dramatic but it is still quite an extraordinary film nevertheless.