Once again, I chose a comedy that didn't look like my type. I had enjoyed another National Lampoon hit, Animal House, but I'm not 18 anymore, and Chevy Chase hasn't struck me as on par with John Belushi. Still, the name of Chase's character, Clark Griswold, pops up now and then, and it wouldn't do for me merely to assume a generic bumbling dad in a hackneyed farce.
The vacation in question is to Roy Walley World, a knockoff of Disneyland, despite the kids, Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and Audrey (Dana Barron), being too old to feel very excited about it. Clark insists on a drive all the way from Chicago, partly to see sights along the way and partly to avoid the isolation that commonly occurs on flights. They also visit relatives on the side of his wife, Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), tho that isn't in Clark's plus column. The journey takes up most of the runtime, and as you can imagine, it's one mishap after another.
I was reminded of Little Miss Sunshine, The Out-of-Towners, and one arc of Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation. For the most part, the suffering comes not from sheer bad luck but from either dealing with scoundrels or making stupid choices, like driving while sleepy. Some of the events would be pretty darn tragic in RL, but they're presented in a way that doesn't elicit much sympathy, if only because the victims -- even the dog -- are hard to respect.
Among the central family, Clark is the primary offender, almost never recognizing when he's a jerk. He rarely compromises, regardless of how outvoted he is. He lies frequently to give the illusion of control or to keep a positive spin. And as the trip increases his desperation, he comes dangerously close to going through with an adulterous fantasy. Ellen must either strongly oppose separation or be too much of a fool to see the merit in it.
About that dangerous closeness: Just because the focus is on a family doesn't mean it's family-friendly. Like AH, this flick doesn't shy away from topless women, literal use of the F-word, or alcohol and other drugs. And forget about morals: There's no karmic consistency and no message to discern.
Has it aged well? Eh, kind of, but Hollywood wouldn't make it quite the same way anymore. Never mind the super-dated video game console; mere advances in communications technology would have prevented or transmuted a lot of the Griswolds' troubles. Furthermore, most of the Black characters are criminals, and Clark treats the one decent Black man like a dog. Maybe he didn't mean anything racist by it, and maybe neither did director Harold Ramis or writer John Hughes, but modern viewers would call it problematic at best. (The American Indians' depiction seems fair enough.)
That said, an unintentional period piece can have accidental charm. I enjoyed the soundtrack, most of which I'd never heard before. And what doesn't evoke nostalgia evokes relief. Nice to know that such a station wagon would be considered ugly when new.
NLV is no Groundhog Day. I won't watch another entry in the series, and I doubt I'd have gotten much more out of it long ago. But at least I now know the Griswolds, and I can see why their brand might carry a broad appeal.
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