National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation Review
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Best Christmas Movie Ever!
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arizona1121, United States of America (Reviewer Ranking: 1) wrote this review on December 30, 2005:
For children, the approach of Christmas is a time of breathless anticipation. For many adults, it is a feeling of slow strangulation. Heck, I don't even celebrate Christmas, but this movie is still one of the funniest I have ever seen. There is no question that this is an adult Christmas film, best watched after everyone under about age 14 is tucked safely into bed for their long winter's nap.
Don't fill your eggnog glasses too full, however; because fifteen minutes into "Christmas Vacation" you'll be laughing so hard that you'll be wearing your Old English and J&B on your reindeer sweater. Quite simply, this movie is the most side-splittingly funny film ever made about the American tradition of all getting together in one house for Christmas and driving each other nuts.
Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is the focal point of the hilarity, caught as he is in a futile struggle to live up to his own impossible expectations about himself and his role as his extended family's new patriarch and benevolent provider. The three sets of elderly grandparents who detest each other all add to his feeling of tension and pressure; and the uninvited appearance of cousin Eddy, his family and his snot-soaked dog in a moldering, ancient RV is the final jewel in this crown of comedic genius.
Add to this equation the whining teenage daughter, the ever-patient and eternally suffering son, the boss who doesn't even know his name, the Christmas bonus check that still hasn't arrived, and the 25,000 "Imported Italian Twinkle Lights" that simply refuse to light, (or twinkle,) and you have in Clark a man who is standing, as he howls at one point, "on the brink of Hell."
Throughout it all, the exquisite and irreplaceable Beverly D'Angelo breezes around as Clark's beautiful and inhumanly loving and patient wife; proving conclusively that even being married to the perfect woman isn't enough to make a man happy when he expects the superhuman from himself.
With these ingredients and these actors alone, we have a potentially good, funny, interesting film. There is, however, a third element that pushes this movie over the top and into the realm of true, timeless greatness; and that is the sheer love it has for the often burdensome cross of family.
I challenge you to watch this and not tear up at some point. When Clark finds old 8mm film of his childhood Christmases in the '50's; when his father comes out to the laundry room to give him a loving word of advice; when the godd**n lights FINALLY come on. These are just a few of the moments where I pretend my nose is stuffed up, and keep my face turned so that my tears are invisible. This film genuinely loves Clark and his all-too-familiar family; and even though each heartwrenching moment is likely to be followed by an exquisite gag that will have you crying and choking at the same time, I challenge you not to love yourself and everyone around you (even your relatives) just a little bit more after watching this classic.
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