HOME ALONE 2: Kevin McCallister’s Tricks For A Sequel

Kevin McCallister took the Chicago suburbs by storm in Home Alone. He could charm the grocery store clerk. He could whip up a holiday party of dancing mannequins in no time. He could booby trap Harry and Marv when they tried to rob his house.

Home Alone 2 takes up a story done before with a great cast – and Macaulay Culkin at its core – and refreshes it for another holiday classic. This year, Kevin makes it to the airport and isn’t forgotten by his family at home. This year, he gets on the wrong plane and ends up in New York City where he can have his own Christmas celebration and eat three scoops of ice cream – he’s not driving.

Kevin is one for devious Rube Goldberg plots. As homage to his young mind, here are the steps to keeping his sequel from being stale.

Step 1: Blow Up the Personalities

Key to a Home Alone sequel is none other than Kevin. Part of why we love him is how we see the world through his eyes. Kevin’s family members are performative. They run around the house preparing for their vacation, sustaining one animated dialogue more fitting of the stage than individual family members zipping around looking for their bathing suits and toothbrushes.

All of Kevin’s family members fall into a stride of doing wrong by Kevin but still being lovable. His brother Buzz (Devin Ratray) bullies him but can come around when it’s important. His mom (Catherine O’Hara) wonderfully moves from stern to nervous to loving. With all the noise inside of the home, it comes as no surprise that Kevin wants out, and the film lives in a mode of childlike precociousness and sass.

The other people Kevin meets are more one-note, but it works in painting the world and human relationships through Kevin’s eyes. To Kevin, people are good (Mr. Duncan from the toy store, the Pigeon Lady), evil (Harry and Marv), or incompetent (nearly anyone who works in service industries), and thus creates roadblocks for him. The characterization of those on screen serves to develop Kevin’s worldview. People are good or bad and they’ll either help Kevin or they won’t.

Step 2: Edit so it’s Cheeky

When the Miami Airport security tells Kevin’s parents, “It’s very unlikely he’d be anywhere else,” the scene cuts to New York, where Kevin passes by a fish truck, out of which escape Harry and Marv. Like its predecessor, Home Alone 2 is built like one of Kevin’s booby traps: scenes are edited so that characters, and their ignorance, are the butt of the joke.

A light bulb turns on above the devious concierge (Tim Curry). Kevin and his mom seem to speak to each other from Miami and New York, their longing so strong and so aligned. As a result of the editing, the film effectively underscores the world in which it lives: there are holes that in order to pass disbelief is suspended. Though much of the film’s comedy derives from its physical gags – Kevin pushing Buzz on stage at the Christmas pageant and the entire set collapses, Kevin tipping the bellhop Cedric with a piece of gum, anything involving Harry and Marv – much of it is situational and ironic.

Step 3: Remember Your Morals 

New York is a big new step for Kevin, and it shows. When walking the streets by Central Park alone at night, people who are homeless or sex workers become figures of horror. The depiction of both these figures and those who work at the airport and in the hotel creates a fairly judgmental worldview of those who cannot live in the uber wealthy Chicago suburbs and all fly to Miami or Paris for Christmas vacation, like Kevin’s family can.

After running from the scary people, though, Kevin encounters the Pigeon Lady in Central Park. When she frees his foot from a rock, he begins to flee while screaming but then realizes that he should turn around and talk and not scream in her face. They go to a concert hall and listen to a concert from the rafters: a pan up over the orchestra and the audience finds Kevin watching next to a spotlight. He could just as easily be in the crowd with everyone else but he spends time listening with, and to, the Pigeon Lady, though never gets her name.

In their conversation, he exhibits a precocious empathy and awareness that makes us like him again. These morals push him to action in the end of the film and resurrect this faith in human relationships, with both the Pigeon Lady and later his family members.

Certain parts of the film don’t age very well. The depiction of New Yorkers feels rooted in classism and phobias. New York itself pulls from an older era – the Twin Towers, Trump’s cameo, the Plaza Hotel before it changed management.

Home Alone 2 does offer holiday charm, cheekiness, and sass that makes you love your family even when you wish you never belonged with them on Christmas Eve.

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