Scene of the Week: Home Alone - Mom Finds Kevin
As Christmas gets closer, it seemed logical to pick a scene from yet another Christmas film to add to our Scene of the Week segment. When I try to think of my favourite Christmas movie, I always come to choosing Home Alone. Home Alone is a film that really captures the Christmas spirit and is the movie I looked forward to watching every year. Not only is the film funny, it is extremely heart-warming, which is portrayed brilliantly in the scene where Kevin McCallister’s Mom finally returns back from Paris, Christmas morning, to be reunited with her son who was accidentally left behind.
There are probably more people who have seen Home Alone, than not, but to put it quickly, Home Alone stars Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, an 8 year old boy who is accidentally left at home, by his family as they go on holiday to paris, a couple of days before Christmas. Due to extended family going on this trip the number of heads to count are many, and with a chain of unfortunate events, like a storm cutting out the electricity, resetting their alarming clock, in turn making them rush to the airport, the leaving a family member behind became somewhat plausible. As Kevin lives at home alone, he find himself having to defend his home from two extremely funny but stupid thieves trying to rob thier his home. This became the premise for the film, whilst the mom works her way back to Kevin. As the film comes to an end, and Kevin has got the thieves arrested, He wakes up Christmas day, expecting his family to be home. When he realises that no one has yet returned, you see Kevin come to the realisation that he may never see his family again. At this point the door open, revealing his tiresome mom, leading me to my Scene of the Week….
Kevin has given up hope on ever seeing his mom again, so he slowly goes back to bed. As Kevin makes his way upstairs the front door opens up behind him revealing his mom. Kevin’s Mom shouts his name, prompting Kevin to turn around and come sprinting back down the stairs. Whilst Kevin makes his journey back downstairs, his Mom looks around at the decorated house and absorbs the maturity of her 8 year old. As Kevin reaches the bottom of the stairs and turns the corner looking for his parent, she appears behind him and gasps with happiness as she sees her child in one piece. Kevin turns round but gives his mom a cold look, prompting her to apologise for leaving him behind, but Kevin is just fooling with her, soon giving her a huge grin allowing the pair to forgive each other and hug it out, capturing that mother/son bond. To add to this joyful moment, the rest of the family arrive home minutes after, with the dad joking that they got home the same time as the mom because they waited for the next flight, unlike the distressed mother desperately trying to get home by any means necessary.
This scene is an extremely emotional one, but not much happens, which is why the score was vital to express this heartwarming moment. The person tasked with do so, was the legendary, and best film composer who has ever lived, Mr John Williams. Williams has composed countless recognisable scores, with Home Alone being nearer the top of the list. The song played during this scene is called “Mom Returns and Finale”. This track really captures Home Alone, and takes me back to this scene every time I listen to it. Home Alone is a great Christmas film, made perfect by Williams’ unbelievable talent.
It really doesn’t get much better than Home Alone, when it come to Christmas films. It has everything you would want at Christmas. I could have picked so many different scenes from this timeless classic, but this scene really does capture everything that is great about the film and sums up the meaning of Christmas.
