Vacation
Vacation | ||
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Director: | Harold Ramis | Actors: | Chevy Chase (as Clark Wilhelm Griswold, Jr.), Beverly D'Angelo (as Ellen Griswold), Imogene Coca (as Aunt Edna), Randy Quaid (as Cousin Eddie), Anthony Michael Hall (as Russell 'Rusty' Griswold), Dana Barron (as Audrey Griswold), Eddie Bracken (as Roy Walley), Brian Doyle-Murray (as Kamp Komfort Clerk), Miriam Flynn (as Cousin Catherine), James Keach (as Motorcycle Cop), Eugene Levy (as Car Salesman), Frank McRae (as Grover), John Candy (as Lasky, Guard at Walleyworld), Christie Brinkley (as The Girl in the Ferrari), Jane Krakowski (as Cousin Vicki) | Country: | USA | Category: | Comedy | Year: | 1983 |
| Description: | The Griswold family, father Clark W., wife Ellen, daughter Audrey and son Rusty, set out in high spirit to spend their vacation driving cross-country from Chicago to a glorious climax in Walley World on the West Coast. The trip which Clark planned down to the minute, slowly loses its smoothness from the moment the first grain of sand gets in. A meeting with constantly-in-debt, simple-minded cousin Eddie results in the Griswold family giving cantankerous aunt Edna a lift to Phoenix. Of course, the Griswolds receive one strike of bad luck after another, and when they finally arrive at Walley World, they have to find out that the park is closed for maintenance. But Clark promised his beloved family the best vacation ever... | Comments: | It seems that I'm in a minority. Yes, the film IS directed by Harold Ramis, who was responsible for the delightful `Groundhog Day'; and it was written by John Hughes, who wrote some pretty good scripts in the 1980s. I'll even admit there are funny moments, although the only one which really gets me is the climax in Wally World. (It's a proper comic climax, I'll give it that.) But ... ... spoiler ahead ... I don't hold with cinematic cruelty to dogs. Not that it can't be done funnily - see, for instance, `A Fish Called Wanda'. But it ain't funny here. The Griswolds tie a dog to the back of their car and drive off; later, they (and we) are only reminded of the dog when a policeman pulls them over for having killed it. As I've described it the scene could yet be funny. Instead it comes across as merely sick. A nasty mind was at work here: the writing, like so much of the film's writing, is just plain tacky, something that makes us cringe while we think we're being amused. Hughes doesn't even seem to be taking a joyous delight in stepping outside the bounds of good taste. He drags out the scene in a leaden way until it cries out to the heavens to be finished and done with. This is NOT black comedy, whatever else it is. Black comedy is a wine: this is rather a shot of unadulterated gin which leaves a sour taste in your mouth and makes you feel as though you've been clubbed on the back of the head. There's poetic justice in the way `Vacation' has aged. It takes such grim delight in making fun of its uncool and behind-the-times protagonists. It now looks even more out of date than they do. |
Languages: | Subtitles: | Length: | 98 | Video format: | Audio format: | Resolution: | Files sizes: |