Home Alone

Home Alone is a brilliant film directed by John Hughes, which explains the hilarious story of a house robbery attempt through the eyes eight year old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin). The director starts the story in Kevin’s house where his family is getting ready to leave for France the next day. While they are preparing their last dinner at their house before they leave for France, Kevin gets into a fight with his brother and is forced to sleep on the third floor. His parents forget to bring him on the family trip due to being rushed from a power outage overnight and being isolated since he is on the third floor. This leaves Kevin alone with no power in his house for days. During his time alone he realizes that a pair of thieves are planning to rob his house, but he creates the ultimate plan to take them down and send them to jail. 
    As the film progresses, the audience sees Kevin start off as selfish stubborn kid, like in the beginning when he claims that when he is older his is going to “live alone.” His unwillingness to accept his family soon gets changed later in the film when he realizes that he needs their love and protection when he is confronted with the fearful situation of his house getting robbed. During the the time his family is gone he claims that he will never be “a pain in the butt again” if his parents came back for him. Because of his maturity and change of character, Kevin portrays a dynamic character which is clearly evident to the audience because even though the movie is shot from a third person view, the audience sees through Kevin’s eyes and feels his emotions. 
    Not only was the plot entertaining, the film was also very well put together. Everything in the story was well explained, which makes it enjoyable for anyone to watch. An example of this would be that the reason why Kevin couldn't call his parents to tell them that he was okay while they were gone was because the power lines were destroyed which also explain why his family was almost late to their flight which caused them to leave Kevin home. Because the whole plot was thoroughly thought out, the movie performs seamlessly. The movie also used camera angles to quietly set a tone in the movie. When the camera was looking towards Kevin, the camera was pointed downwards so the audience would view Kevin as just a child, but when the camera was pointed to adults, the camera was pointed upwards to make Kevin seem smaller. Not only was the movie edited well, the actors were superb. Each character seemed believable to the audience, for example, Buzz McCallister(Devin Ratray), Kevin’s older brother, plays the stereotypic mean older brother. During the time Kevin and Buzz talk to each other, it is clear that there is tension, and because the actors performed at a high level it was very believable and truly brought life to the film. 
    During this movie, Kevin McCallister goes through a series of fearful external events including being left home alone for days and having to confront two thiefs. These fears actually push Kevin forward as he turns from a small helpless boy who has “never packed a suitcase before” to a mature eight year old who takes care of his house when he is home alone. This makes the audience smile in the end after going through the stress because of the series of fears Kevin must go through to get stronger. Because of its interesting plot, believable characters, and a hilarious script, I would definitely recommend this family friendly film to anyone searching for a comedic film.



https://www.theguardian.com/film/commentisfree/2018/dec/22/home-alone-festive-film-hardly-the-muppets