It’s A WONDERFUL LIFE when you’re HOME ALONE
At this time of year, some familiar DVD’s are usually dusted off from the shelves and given an annual watch. From The Muppets Christmas Carol to Die Hard via The Nightmare Before Christmas and everything else in between, Christmas films tend to get more of an airing than those set at any other time of year.
Two Christmas films that have both passed into the pantheon of Christmas classics are Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and Chris Columbus’s ‘Home Alone’. While it may not appear that the tale of a family man gaining focus on his existence has much to do with a juvenile fighting off two bumbling burglars, the two films are remarkably cut from the same cloth. One is a Christmas fable in which the lead character is shown a glimpse of what life would be like without something fundamental in it by other worldly forces. The other stars James Stewart.
‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is well known for its final act in which a down on his luck individual wishes he had never been born and so is shown just what effect his seemingly ordinary life had on the world. While the glimpse that the angel Clarence shows to George is only a small section of the film, it is the film’s beating heart and the point to which Capra is leading us all the way through (the short story from which the film is inspired centres almost entirely around this final act). We’re taken to the brink before Clarence leads us through to the wonderful feel-good ending.
For all its final sentiment though, It’s a Wonderful Life is, at times, a very dark film. Make no bones about it, George Bailey is going to kill himself on Christmas eve, leaving his wife to raise their young children and riddled with debt. Like all excellent feel-good flicks it takes us to the very edge of the bridge before bringing us back. Bailey’s descent into this depression is best represented during that remarkable scene at the family home in which Stewart truly excels himself as Capra manages to capture the descent into personal hell. It’s almost the polar opposite to the climax in which, having being shown his wonderful life by Clarence, George returns home to his adoring family.
When it comes to Home Alone, the final act in which Kevin defends his home from Marv and Harry is also what it is famed for. Yet this is not what makes it the close cousin of Capra’s masterpiece. That comes earlier when Kevin is left by himself in quite ridiculous fashion. Let’s get one thing straight – Home Alone has one of the most contrived set ups in film history. In order for Kevin to be left on his own he has to mis-behave to be sent to sleep on the third floor and moan about Fuller wetting the bed so Fuller is sent to sleep somewhere else before a power outage causes the alarm clock to fail which means his mum, dad, brothers, sisters, aunt, uncle and cousins all oversleep which in turn forces them to forget about him thanks to their rushing, while a young boy from across the street just so happens to come and play with the luggage with his back to everyone forcing Heather to mis-count and thus ensuing the family head off to the airport and get on a plane where the kids just so happen to be sitting in a separate compartment, thus ensuing Kevin’s mum, dad, aunt and uncle realise he is not there while the rest of the kids, so we assume, just don’t notice he’s not around. Kevin, meanwhile, misses everything, sleeping through the airport couriers ringing the doorbell and all the frantic rushing around in the house beneath him. Frankly, it’s a little, no, a lot, ridiculous. So how exactly does the film manage to get away with it? The answer is because there is a fantastical underlying to it all. As Kevin is lead upstairs by his mum, the two argue about how Kevin would feel if he ‘woke up the next day and didn’t have a family’ ending with mum saying ‘maybe you should say it again, maybe it will happen’. This may seem like a case of spoon-feeding the audience but in truth it leads to Kevin lying on the bed and wishing that ‘they would all just disappear’. As he wishes this, the camera cuts to the moon, John Williams now iconic score plays and the key event that sets off the sequence leading to Kevin being left – namely the storm which causes the power outage – occurs. Yet it’s not a storm.
It’s a mysterious swirl of the wind, there is no rain or lightening and a branch breaks under absolutely no pressure, creating the power cut which cuts the alarm and in turn leaves Kevin cut off with no phone. It’s almost as if there is another force at work here. Something, somewhere has heard Kevin’s wish – be it God, an angel, Mother Nature or the fickle hand of fate. In It’s a Wonderful Life, we have this force manifested in the human form of angel Clarence that grants George his glimpse. In Home Alone the force is unseen, but that is not to say it isn’t there. George Bailey is shown what the world would be like without him in it while Kevin McAllister is given a view of what his life would be like without his family in it.
The magical overtones don’t stop there. Notice how when Kevin calls out for his mum the first time while watching ‘Angels with Filthy Souls’, his cry echoes and the film cuts to his mum in the plane who finally realises she may have forgotten something. And when Kevin finally realises he wants his family back, he doesn’t go to the police or try to call them (more on that shortly) but turns to that other magical creature in the form of Santa Clause (or at least, as Kevin thinks, someone who works for him). His wish, as we discover at the end, is granted.
While Kevin does manage to clear up all his traps and deck the halls in remarkably quick time, and never tries to contact either the police or his parents when he realises he wants his family back or that two bumbling burglars are going to try and rob his house, it’s perhaps something of a stretch to suggest that the view of the world that Kevin is presented with is not happening for real (unlike George Bailey’s view whose glimpse is definitely a projection). The phones are down I hear you say, but Kevin quite easily manages to get into a neighbours house to make a 911 call during the films climax, not to mention the fact that he manages to order a pizza with no working phone in the house. This latter point is most likely an oversight on the behalf of the scriptwriters rather than Kevin’s imagination, and we must not forget that he doesn’t manage to tidy Buzz’s room plus the fact that his dad finds Harry’s gold tooth on the floor.
Both Home Alone and It’s a Wonderful Life of course evoke the eternal spirit of that all time Christmas classic in the form of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. All three stories involve an individual changing their outlook on life after being shown something by other-worldly forces. While George and Kevin are not shown a view of Christmas past, present and yet to come (more like ‘how life could be’), the general principal is the same.
The ending of ‘It’s a wonderful life’ is of course now iconic in film history as George runs through the streets of Bedford Falls shouting ‘Merry Christmas everyone!’ before reuniting with his family. On paper, it seems somewhat saccharine but the film earns this ending, by taking us to the very brink of human despair and pulling us back as mentioned earlier. Home Alone’s ending is perhaps a little more subtle, as the McAllister’s return to Kevin on Christmas morning (without presents), showing in a more tactile way than many other Christmas films, having your family around you is what the festival is all about. But both still end with everyone happy and together again, leaving the audience with a sense of joy.
There is also a more overt connection between the two films – George Bailey actually utters the words ‘home alone’ and Kevin’s family are seen watching ‘It’s a wonderful life’ in a Parisian apartment. Perhaps, on a deeply subconscious level (or even a more conscious one) Chris Columbus knew he was making a film that thematically had a lot more in common with Frank Capra’s classic.
The two films may seem on the surface as if they have little to nothing in common. But at their heart they both share a heartfelt moral message, a journey of a character who is come to see the true beauty of what he has and both deserve their place amongst the films placed on hard rotation whenever December rolls around.
Written by Phil Slatter
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