Oh goodie - up next is 1989’s enduring comedy classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. This is one of my all-time faves and I have fond memories of first watching this round my mate’s house as a kid and instantly falling in love with its humorous depiction of the holidays as a pressure cooker of stress. Watching it as a full-grown man, I can see how naff a lot of the slapstick humour is, but to me this film is quintessential Christmas and Chevy Chase at his best. Chase is Clark Griswold, flawed but dedicated family man who seriously loves Christmas and who wants to make this year’s family get together the best ever. Naturally, everything that can go wrong will go wrong, creating a hilarious domino effect of increasingly nutty festive disasters.
Part of why this one works so well is that, unlike Chase’s previous ‘Vacation’ movies, this one largely keeps the action confined to the Griswold household and goes all out on the holiday cheer. Watching this as a boy, I enjoyed the various cartoonish ways Clark gets hurt and humiliated - falling off ladders, taking planks of wood to the kisser, getting wiped out by a massive tree and a whole lot more. Watching it as an adult and (I like to think) master of the house, I find so much more to identify with, like trying your best not to succumb to the relentless pressure of catering to rowdy festive houseguests. Every time Clark loses his shit he’s speaking for every one of us who’s busted their ass to impress the family only for some sozzled relative (usually mum) to pick holes in everything.
Directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik and from a script by that big Christmas-lover John Hughes this is full of side-splitting setpieces involving exploding turkeys, faulty Christmas lights, asshole yuppie neighbours, insane sled stunts, a mischievous squirrel, a kidnapping and an explosive finale involving an RV’s chemical toilet. It’s a film that squeezes lots of gifts under its tree and never allows you to get bored.
Chase is excellent as merry but close to insanity Clark, though Randy Quaid threatens to steal the show as his trailer-trash oblivious moocher cousin Eddie.
Chase flexes his comedic muscles, from barely disguising his horniness on a trip to a department store lingerie department, to going full-blown, foul-mouthed bonkers when he unwraps his Christmas ‘bonus’
It’s a great film because it’s so simple, cutely pointing out how society puts far too much emphasis on making our holidays the best ever. We try so hard to make things perfect that we don’t leave a whole lot of time to enjoy anything. Clark’s wife Evelyn (Beverly D’Angelo) gets the film’s best line when the overwhelmed mother tears open her cigarettes and sighs “It’s Christmas - we’re all in misery.”
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