Vacation
2015 · Directed by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Original language: English
- comedy
- adventure
The story
Hoping to bring his family closer together and to recreate his childhood vacation for his own kids, a grown up Rusty Griswold takes his wife and their two sons on a cross-country road trip to the coolest theme park in America, Walley World. Needless to say, things don't go quite as planned.
What it’s like
Bright, saturated daylight over American highways: sun-bleached asphalt, sprawling desert vistas, motel neon and the glossy primary colours of a theme park, shot in a fairly conventional, well-lit comedy style with lots of handheld wobble during the chaos. The sound is upbeat and pop-driven, with rock needle-drops and a bouncy score that keeps the energy moving. The vibe is breezy, slapstick-leaning and mildly frazzled, the kind of comfortable mess that suits a lazy weekend afternoon, a long-haul flight, or a light comfort watch when you want to laugh without thinking too hard. Pacing is brisk and episodic, moving from one mishap to the next, with a warm emotional thread about a dad trying too hard to reconnect with his wife and sons and slowly learning to loosen up. Intensity is low to moderate: plenty of crude humour and sexual innuendo, a few raunchy set-pieces, some pratfalls and minor injuries, and occasional sharp family bickering, but no real gore and little genuine menace. It is for people who want a raucous, good-natured road-trip comedy with a soft family heart.
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