Review of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) by Andrew R — 24 Dec 2011

Well, since today is Christmas I decided to pop in one of my favorite holiday classics, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Christmas Vacation is one of the four vacation films (I don't count that direct to video release of Christmas Vacation 2) starring Chevy Chase as a father attempting to have the perfect "Griswold Christmas".

In the film, Clark (Chevy Chase) and his wife, Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), host Christmas at their house for the season in their quest to have the perfect Christmas. The film starts out with the Griswold family on their way to buy a Christmas tree. But instead of going to a tree lot, the family (mainly Clark) decide to go hiking in the woods to chop down their very own "Griswold Christmas tree".

At this point in the film you know things are not going to go so perfectly. In order for the family to get to where they need to go to find a Christmas tree, the family ends up speeding down a road, getting caught under a truck, almost getting shredded to bits by a snowplow, launching their car off a snow drift, walking through knee deep snow, getting frozen solid, and cutting down a tree without a saw. And this is all just the beginning scene.

I love how the beginning sets the tone for the rest of the film. After seeing how much the family had to go through to get their Christmas tree, one can assume the kinds of trouble they may be running into. From these beginning chain of events someone can also see that this is not going to be your standard, everyone's happy Christmas film. Yes, just like most films, everything in the end ties together and everyone ends up having a merry Christmas, but the fun part is seeing everything they need to go through to have that merry Christmas.

Carrying the film almost the whole way was the performance by Chevy Chase. He does a great job coming off as the, as said in the film, "last family man" trying to make everything perfect. From the amount of lights that Clark puts on the house to the optimistic attitude he has eating Christmas Eve's overcooked dinner, he never fails to give you at least a little chuckle each scene.

Along side Chevy Chase is the other funny man in the film, Randy Quaid, or better known as his character name, Cousin Eddie. Eddie is Clark's cousin-in-law that just randomly shows up at Clark's house for Christmas in his RV without any money or an invitation. The conversations between Clark and Eddie throughout the movie have to be my favorite parts because of the sarcastic answers that Clark always has to anything that Eddie may say.

It is hard for me to say anything bad about this film considering it is my favorite holiday film and viewing it at least 100 times, but no film is perfect. The only problem I had was that some of my favorite characters didn't have enough screen time. I loved the Griswold's neighbors Margo and Todd. They hated living next door to the Griswolds and they made sure you knew it. Each scene they used these characters you were guaranteed some laughs, which makes me wish that they had maybe one or two more jokes in the movie.

Overall I would say that this comedy could be watched by anyone at anytime, but I will admit it is the most fun during the holiday season. If your looking for a funny holiday comedy this season I would totally recommend Christmas Vacation to anyone. From the fun family atmosphere to the strong comedic performances, there is something for anyone in this film.

"Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse."- Clark Griswold.