FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE John Hughes - Home Alone 

When I was Kevin's age, I got up extra early on Sundays. My parents were still sleeping and finally I was: Home Alone. I was able to do everything that my parents would normally have forbidden me to do! But John Hughes Home Alone also brings up the kind of unpleasant memories. Being left home as a child, strange noises coming from the basement and fear. In the beginning, eight-year-old Kevin does all the same things that I liked to do when I was home alone. But he also takes down two burglars with a booby trap. If you wondered how a child can make such constructions out of everyday objects - I wondered too. Still, John Hughes' film seems real. That's because his genius lies in remembering exactly what it was like to be young. Hughes' best films are always both: crazy AND plausible. And Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is real! He lives in a suburb of Chicago (all Hughes movies are set in Chicago). It's the night before the family Christmas vacation to Paris and everyone is excited, rushing around the house. Somehow they missed Kevin in all the confusion. When he wakes up the next morning, the house is empty. I think about how I would have reacted as a kid. Probably more scared than Kevin. Probably would have gone over to our neighbor Nowack's. But Kevin's neighbor, they say, is the notorious Snow Shovel Killer. Just as Kevin's parents are unable to contact him. An incredible scenario with a real Kevin in it. Macaulay Culkin manages to make us still understand the action scenes in which Kevin has to chase away two burglars. Even though I wouldn't have designed a booby trap as a child for what felt like 5000 Euros, I can still identify with Kevin. Therein lies the art of John Hughes.