National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

1989's NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION, unlike the other three in this series, does not follow the Griswold family on any vacation.  At least not out of their tony Chicago suburb.  Their families come to them, and as always, there is certainly no shortage of mayhem, awkwardness, and frustration.  John Hughes returned to pen this one, based on his Lampoon short story "Christmas '59" and many of the elements from the original VACATION in 1983 (he did not return for EUROPEAN VACATION in 1985) are in place.  This is good and bad and also resembles the other movies in that it has a variable joke ratio. A few laugh out loud moments.  Some groans.  Mostly smiles.

Clark (Chevy Chase) insists upon hosting Christmas at his home, inviting their families, much to the understandable concern of wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), son Rusty (Johnny Galecki) and daughter Audrey (Juliette Lewis).  We meet the parents: Clark Griswold Sr. (John Randolph),  Nora Griswold (Diane Ladd),  Art Smith (E.G. Marshall), and Frances Smith (Doris Roberts), Ellen's folks.  I was reminded of the character sketches in Hughes' SIXTEEN CANDLES.  These actors are sadly underused. As are William Hickey as Clark's Uncle Lewis and Mae Questel as his Aunt Bethany.  Mae provides the biggest laughs in the movie, my favorite being her version of saying grace before dinner.

But we get plenty, too much of Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie.  Crass and shameless (and uninvited), Eddie and his white trash family (and pet Rottweiler) arrive in a sketchy RV and immediately class down the joint.  Quaid made quite an impression in the '83 film, and is still funny, but by the time he yells, "Shitter's full!" maybe we've had enough of him.  I would've liked more of Miriam Flynn, who plays his wife, Ellen's cousin.  In fact, all the women get short shrifted in this comedy.  The considerable talents of D'Angelo and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who with Nicholas Guest plays the Griswold snotty Yuppie next-door neighbors are barely seen.

But this is again Clark's saga.  The tale of a man determined to show his family a fine time even if he overloads the town's electric grid and sets off increasing destruction.  Again Hughes provides a woman for Clark's wandering eye, this time a department store clerk played by Nicolette Scorsese (no relation to Martin).  She's kinda blah, and again this attempt at examining the familiar seven year itch falls flat.  As does another pet death.  All of the VACATION films have laughless stretches, jokes that thud.  But director Jeremiah Chechich creates a suitably Christmassy backdrop that at least makes for a good movie to play while you're enjoying your own holiday festivities.