A holiday perennial for dads in their 40s, whitebread division. They ALL seem to love this one. It’s a film best seen from a living room recliner.
The story is your regular “odd couple” scenario, but this time it stars Steve Martin and John Candy and is set in the 1980s of John Hughes, where even the worst trials lead to a heartwarming resolution and a swelling of twinkly pop music. Hughes previously wrote the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies and he recycles them here, except run backwards. An uptight Chicago marketing exec on a business trip in New York City slapsticks and bad lucks his way back home for Thanksgiving, with a complete slob, whom he’d otherwise never encounter in his expensive-watch and gorgeous-two-story-home life, going in the same direction attached to his hip. His plane gets grounded in snowy weather, his train stops because of engine problems, his rental vehicle explodes due to wacky mishaps and all of the good hotels are perpetually filled while money flies like geese out of his wallet. You know the drill.
Hughes pulls out some of those old Vacation gags, such as the comically untrustworthy townies and the characters forced to drive a ravaged car, and drops Midwestern snow on them. The dads of the world don’t mind at all.
There are some good laughs here, but this also marks the depressing point where fans of Steve Martin’s wild early comedies started to lose him. From here on, he began to play more and more exasperated fathers. His uniform went from a white suit to a sensible sweater and khakis.
Makes sense, though. Comedy star personas in the movies tend to burn on a short wick, which I think speaks for how difficult the business of being funny on film really is. Steve Martin went from The Jerk to remaking late-career Spencer Tracy roles. Eddie Murphy did kids movies. Bill Murray became a critically acclaimed sad sack. Dan Aykroyd now sells vodka and UFO conspiracy. Chevy Chase became a gossip column headline in stories about how difficult he is on the set. And John Candy just up and died.