Joy to the World!!! (National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (DVD))

Member Name: paranormalhandy

Product:	National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (DVD)
Date:	17/05/09 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Not only the best movie, but also the funniest, of the National Lampoons

Disadvantages: Some of the humour is broad (although not by modern standards)

Americans, compared to us Brits, are incredibly fortunate when it comes to having a satisfying Christmas. We still hanker after a Victorian ideal - robins in the garden, holly and ivy in the hall, and above all, a chilly blank of silent snow. But sadly, our actual winter has shifted a couple of months since Dickens' day, and even if we do get a few flakes on December 25th, it's more an anomaly than ordinary weather. By contrast, many areas of the USA can be plunged into great blizzards from mid-Fall onwards. Of course, this can be inconvenient, even dangerous, but it does have the advantage that those endless shopping trips and last minute panics are played out with a traditionally snowy backdrop. And it is this semi-magical Winter Wonderland that is so perfectly pitched by the 1989 comedy "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation".

Like previous National Lampoon movies, "Vacation" and "European Vacation", this movie features the Griswold family, a sort of real-human proto-Simpsons, lead by Clarke, Chevy Chase's recurring patriach (half Phillip Huxtable, half Basil Fawlty) and Beverly Di'Angelo as his (very traditional) long-suffering wife. Essentially, Clarke drives the plot by his simple, blind resolve that the whole family (they also have two adolescent children) are to have "the best Christmas ever" - no matter what.

His attempts, of course, are all humourously thwarted in some way. But almost incidentally, and aside from all the comic set-pieces you would expect from National Lampoon, "Christmas Vacation" does manage to conjure up all the elements of a wonderful, traditional Holiday Season for all of Clarke's family - and all with the backdrop of clear snowy days and frozen, fairy-lit nights.

On the downside, individual characters and moments can seem quite dated and/or toe-curling. The CD-buying yuppie neighbours (including a young Julia Louis-Dreyfus from "Seinfeld") and the awkward in-laws (Doris Roberts playing practically the same "Mom" she would later reprise in "Everybody Loves Raymond") seem like sit-com-like cliches (appropriately enough, I suppose, considering the cast). Randy Quaid's motorhome-dwelling Cousin Eddie isn't as funny as the writers think he is. And the visual comedy sometimes clunks so heavily (squirrels in Christmas trees, and "funny" sewage gags) that it is in danger of derailing the whole thing.

But still, running underneath the whole movie is such a rich seam of shiny, freshly-baked, tinsel-flecked CHRISTMAS that only the most Scrooge-like could deny the film's charm. "Christmas Vacation" should be watched every year, preferably within a week or so of Hallowe'en, to ease you into the slowly-building Festive mood. And two perfect set-pieces should help those locked in the grip of even the most stressful of Yuletide:

Firstly, the family go sledging on a hillside at night. Some usual comedy business with a souped-up sledge follows, but that's not important. What is, is in the background: hundreds of families crowd the darkened park, happily playing in the snow; food stalls belch steam into the night, and large primary-coloured lights hang from the surrounding fir trees. This is basically a fantastical Advent calender as painted by a modern Bruegel; and the sight effortlessly warms the soul.

The second scene is probably one of the movie's most celebrated: Clarke completely covers his roof in thousands of Christmas lights, only for them to spectacularly fail in front of his whole family. However, just as they disappointedly turn back into the house, a stray extension cord is activated and every bulb leaps into colour and light. The stunned joy on Clarke's face, is so wonderful, it should finally and irrevocably sweep away any miserly thoughts you may have about the bloke on your street who has four-foot-high plastic elves in his front garden every year! In America, you can still find on-line competitions to match or better Clarke Griswold's extraordinary light show, and the fact that people try to do it, without a Hollywood budget and professional lighting engineers, is a testament to the incredible power parts of this film have to touch.

Now, I'm not going to say that this film is a comic masterpiece. Or that the disc is packed with extras (the DVD is effectively vanilla). But if, as is usually the case, some obscure movie channel decides to show it in mid-June, or you see it for £3 at the end of the magazines-and-sweets aisle in mid-November, you could do worse that spent ninety minutes in the Griswalds's late-80s Wonderland.

Summary: Not everything in the eighties was bad