Vaca­tion

Dur­ing the open­ing cred­its to Vaca­tion, we see a bunch of hol­i­day themed pho­tos: fam­i­lies on vaca­tion, babies, road trips, etc. reveal­ing that instead of some­thing sweet, some­thing gross or unfor­tu­nate is hap­pen­ing. A smil­ing woman is sit­ting on a horse on a beach. Turns out the horse is uri­nat­ing. Some of the pho­tos are fun­nier than that, most are not.

The cred­its mir­ror the struc­ture of the film itself: a fam­i­ly is doing some­thing they are enjoy­ing, only for it to turn into a dis­as­ter. The Gris­wolds enter a hot spring, but it turns out it’s a sewage dump. They have a nice con­ver­sa­tion with a truck dri­ver, who then pur­sues them across the coun­try. They go raft­ing in the Grand Canyon, and the instruc­tor decides he wants to com­mit sui­cide via water­fall. It’s a set up that can be fun­ny. It’s a shame that Vaca­tion is not.

Vaca­tion is a reboot-cum-sequel to the 1983 Chevy Chase com­e­dy, Nation­al Lampoon’s Vaca­tion. In the orig­i­nal, Clarke Gris­wold (Chase), takes his fam­i­ly on a road trip to the theme park Wal­ley World. On the way there, they run into trou­ble and Clarke los­es his mind.

In 2015, his son Rusty (Helms), decides to do the same thing with his fam­i­ly. He is at least par­tial­ly moti­vat­ed by over­hear­ing his wife Nan­cy (Christi­na Apple­gate) com­plain that they go to the same vaca­tion spot each year. His solu­tion to the prob­lem is to spring a road trip on his fam­i­ly with­out con­sult­ing them or ask­ing them what they feel like doing. Instead, they get to go to the place where he vaca­tioned as a child. The fam­i­ly gets in the car and hits the road.

What fol­lows is a road trip film that deliv­ers scat­tered laughs, a lot of tedi­um, and some offen­sive humour. It feels like a time­less film in the bad sense of the word: Vaca­tion has lit­tle to say about vaca­tions or fam­i­lies today. The themes that are main­tained through­out the film come to swift, banal resolutions.

It tries a cou­ple of times: Rusty has a nice lit­tle meta moment ear­ly on, Nan­cy is accost­ed for not lik­ing her friend’s Insta­gram pho­tos from Paris, and Chris Hemsworth’s Stone is set up as a macho con­ser­v­a­tive ranch­er, in con­trast to Rusty’s inef­fec­tu­al sub­ur­ban man. But besides a few prods, the film doesn’t real­ly go in that ter­ri­to­ry: it’s as if it is ter­ri­fied of alien­at­ing parts of its audi­ence by mak­ing gen­uine­ly bit­ing remarks. This results in a tooth­less film that feels bland and unwill­ing to go beyond the obvi­ous punch lines. Instead what Vaca­tion finds fun­ny is tor­tur­ing its pro­tag­o­nists, time and again, and in increas­ing­ly unimag­i­na­tive ways.

The per­for­mances are all there. Helms real­ly throws him­self into the role, and match­es Rusty’s bor­der­line insane behav­iour with a lot of man­ic ener­gy. Apple­gate is under­used, but does well with what’s there. The kids share a small arc that is incon­se­quen­tial at best.

There are a cou­ple of moments when Vaca­tion sug­gests like it might be about to turn into some­thing fun­ny and affect­ing. Helms’ attempt to be his son’s wing­man is fun­ny because of his will­ing­ness to com­mit to the bit. When Char­lie Day’s raft instruc­tor takes the Gris­wolds towards a water­fall, the film goes into a slow motion mon­tage that is a wel­come break from the bar­rage of gross-out humour. The Gris­wolds swear a lot, which makes them sound like a real family.

But despite the bright spots, the film can’t stop falling into bad habits. The film’s cli­max looks like it’s going to go for some­thing sweet, the one moment that will bring the jour­ney full cir­cle, but then wastes it all for one more punch line that doesn’t work. Go home, Vaca­tion. You’re drunk.