A Raunchy Family Comedy of Errors Is the Best Holiday Movie Ever | cinetotal.com.br

A Raunchy Family Comedy of Errors Is the Best Holiday Movie of All Time

By Robert Scucci | Published 28 seconds ago With the holiday season quickly approaching, it’s time to continue the Thanksgiving tradition that I actually enjoy more than eating turkey and pawning off the leftovers for my guests. That’s right, once the company leaves, the lights are turned off, and the cranberry sauce is frozen enough to be scraped off the plate and straight into the trash, it’s time to dig through the DVD box and start Christmas Vacation 1989, a movie I’ve watched every Thanksgiving night for longer than I can consciously remember. Everyone’s family is dysfunctional to some degree, including mine, and I think that’s why movies like Christmas Vacation are so universally loved. They play into our insecurities about having the perfect family vacation, showing us how things could actually be much worse than we could ever imagine. The next time you’re wondering if the in-laws are going to drive you crazy this holiday season, it might be in your best interest to watch Christmas Vacation. You’ll feel better about your own situation after watching the Griswold family crumble under the pressure to find the perfect Christmas tree, decorate the house, cook dinner, and make it to New Year’s Eve in one piece. The best entry in the A Country Mile Christmas Vacation franchise, like the National Lampoon Vacation films that came before it, centers on the Griswold family, who can never catch a break. Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is always on edge as he plans the perfect vacation and is determined to give it his all this year. The first mishap involves dragging his wife, Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo), son, Rusty (Johnny Galecki), and daughter, Audrey (Juliette Lewis), out to the middle of nowhere to find the perfect Christmas tree. This backfires immediately and continues to backfire throughout the film, as the tree is absolutely enormous and causes a significant amount of collateral damage whenever the opportunity arises for the threatening inanimate object. Planning to spend his next Christmas bonus on an underground pool, Clark thinks he has it all figured out and rushes to finish decorating the halls before guests start arriving. His plans are constantly thwarted by the arrival of his parents, Clark (John Randolph) and Nora (Diane Ladd), and Ellen’s parents, Art (EG Marshall) and Frances (Doris Roberts). If dealing with the parents isn’t enough chaos, the Griswold family is graced with the presence of Ellen’s cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and her husband Eddie (Randy Quaid), who aren’t exactly in tune with social norms or etiquette. Making matters worse are Clark’s uncle and aunt, Bethany (Mae Questel) and Lewis (William Hickey), whose senility only adds to the impending holiday chaos that is about to unfold. Disasters Take Center Stage Each character introduced to the premise of Christmas Vacation allows for effortless escalation as Clark tries to string the house with thousands of lights, take the kids on a disastrous sledding trip, mitigate family fallout in cramped quarters, deal with power outages, fires, a burned turkey, the nuclear septic tank in Eddie’s trailer, and a dozen other accidents that would destroy even the most stoic of men. Clark, however, is not a stoic man. He’s tense, manic, and stressed to the max by the external forces of his extended family as he tries his best to hold it together, wondering when he’ll get the Christmas bonus he already spent in advance on his surprise pool. Add particularly potent eggnog and a chainsaw into the equation, and the Christmas holidays become a total disaster lesson in how not to handle the holidays if you don’t want your family to see you completely lose your mind when your buttons are pushed a little too hard. Every healthy configuration leads to an unrecoverable incident, causes deep structural damage, and even puts lives at risk. It’s up to the Griswold family to save the holiday from itself, even though the holiday is past the point of no return. Come for the merriment, stay for the meltdowns Christmas Vacation is one of those overly explosive holiday movies that never seems to get old because every climb that feels like the holiday’s final boss is overcome before anyone can recover from what happened to them. Like the Home Alone films, it offers an impossible amount of collateral damage that no real family could reasonably survive. Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, they do, and it’s the perfect way to prepare for the holidays if you have reservations about being a guest or having your own guests. Leaning heavily on its slapstick charm, Christmas Vacation is relentless in its delivery, vibrantly violent, and surprisingly wholesome if you consider what’s really at stake here. Clark Griswold may become increasingly distraught during his vacation odyssey, but that’s because he cares so deeply about his family that he becomes blinded by his own ambition. The next time you’re called out by the in-laws about improper ornament placement, remember that it’s a small detail that can be easily corrected, unlike an angry squirrel hiding in your Christmas tree that will choose the perfect moment to embark on its madness. Christmas Vacation is streaming on Max.

Published: 2025-11-26 18:54:00

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