A few days ago, an old friend of mine posted on Facebook (a Kompromat social network for people 35 and older) that Home Alone does not hold up.

What a thing to say, and at Christmas…

At first, I thought him just an ordinary Scrooge, but I have to admit, several days later, as I streamed the movie on Disney Plus, something occurred to me. I’ve watched this movie for thirty years, every year since it came out. Am I even capable of assessing that it holds up? It has always been present for me.

Pack your suitcase.

If you want to really appreciate the power of movies, take a look at Christmas time. Movies became our traditions. In this strange era of utter disagreement, who doesn’t love great Christmas movies? (The answer is people who don’t celebrate Christmas. Happy Holidays to you all.)

The house is a crowded and chaotic display of fractured family relationships, cousins yelling at cousins, husbands complaining about brother-in-laws, mothers dealing with sons who are a little out of sorts.

How you feel about your family is a complicated thing.

Micro Machines, christmas ornaments, Buzz’s tarantula. So many innocuous things in the movie’s setup will later become part of a hellish maze of torture for the Wet Bandits. But the driving force in the first ten minutes is the introduction of the McCallisters in a glorious sequence of entrances and exits that rival Benny Hill or a Neil Simon farce.

For my generation, Home Alone was the movie that taught kids how to talk back to our parents. Kevin McCallister was a role model and a revolutionary. He literally called his own Mom a dummy, and she didn’t even flinch.

The family elements of Home Alone are where the movie really shines, despite having an entire third act of hilarious mayhem that generally takes all the credit. Most of us have our own Buzz or Uncle Frank that we love, but also drives us crazy.

I’m probably the Buzz in my family, if I’m being honest. I’m hilarious, but I also wouldn’t let you sleep in my room if you were growing on my ass.

Once the family is out of the A plot, it really becomes a movie about Kevin growing up and learning to do things on his own, a classic coming of age story, a signature of a John Hughes screenplay. But the result of Kevin’s maturity is understanding that you only get one family. You may not always like it, but it’s yours none-the-less.

In its clever and roundabout way, Home Alone is really a throwback to any Victiorian ghost story, or even an inspired one like It’s A Wonderful Life. Because in Kevin’s perspective, he made his family disappear. It’s divine magic to him, altering the course of his life, and by virtue of that, changing the lives of everyone around him.

Basically, John Hughes was a freaking genius, and my friend on facebook is what the French call les incompetents.