CHRISTMAS REVIEW OF THE DAY: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

In this Christmas Review, we are going to check out how the oh so functional Griswold family celebrates their Christmas in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. As the family patriarch, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase), prepares to have a memorable and wholesome Christmas with the whole family, which includes the family from his side and from his wife's, Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), side of the family. Many mishaps occur like trying to get a Christmas tree, set up the house with Christmas lights, anxiously waiting for the Christmas bonus paycheck from his boss, surviving his crazy cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid), and all sorts of unfortunate misadventures many American middle class families have to go through during the holidays. It's an absolute delight and fun fest the whole ride through! 



Chevy Chase will always be regarded as one of the masters of comedy and his performance in this film is part of the proof. Chase does such an amazing job as portraying this guy trying to disguise as the "perfect white American dad", when you just know a whole lot of insanity, unethical thoughts, and anger is all buried in. It is a wonderful comedic character to watch trying to survive and endure these mishaps. Beverly D'Angelo does a decent job as playing the supportive and perfect wife. And since the film is a comedy, she does not fail of giving a funny delivery frequently.  Though on a side note and getting a little out of being professional, am I the only one that finds it weird that Clark constantly tries to flirt with other attractive woman when clearly he has an INCREDIBLE hottie to go home to everyday? Just a question that keeps popping in my head. Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie is really hilarious. He's the type of the pain in the butt who you want smack, laugh at, laugh with, and have a party with the same time. It's the kind of great comedic character that has the audiences feel very mixed emotions for but still cannot help but enjoying. The rest of the family, including the Griswold kids, are pretty standard. Nothing that spectacular, they just represent the everyday family and stereotypes. But that is what gives the film a big advantage. It's goal is to not only make us laugh at the situations that are presented in front of us but also laugh at the situations and crazy events almost all families, including ours, go through during Christmas. It's really the ensemble cast that makes the film and holds it up very steady. And people, surprisingly, that's really all I have to say about this film. Yeah, even though I'm still giving this film a high grade, there's not really much left to talk about. The story is pretty standard nothing new, grand, or extravagant. Just about a family trying to survive the holidays. And you know, they did a very good job here in making us laugh at those events. It's really the characters that are given the glory instead of the story. And if you can make characters entertaining, memorable, and funny enough to leave us not really bummed out on not having a complex story, well I say that still makes for a great comedy as well as a Christmas classic!

GRADE: AE

SANTA'S LIST: NICE