"After her character, Kate McCallister, has endured a hellish journey from Paris to get back to her son in Chicago, she finally makes it home on Christmas morning. She wanders around the house, looking frantically for Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) and yelling out his name. But when she finally finds him, she pauses. We see her seeing him. She's been screeching for much of the film, but now her voice becomes quiet and soft. She smiles and wishes him a merry Christmas."
"O'Hara seemed to glow in that movie, even when she was a ball of stress getting ready for the airport, even when she screamed her son's name in a panicked moment of realization that would become one of cinema's most memorable yet briefest lines. There was an aura around her, a warmth, perfectly captured by her red hair and tan coat."
Catherine O'Hara's Kate McCallister completes a harrowing journey from Paris to Chicago and reaches home on Christmas morning. She searches frantically for Kevin, then, upon finding him, shifts from screeching to a quiet, soft voice and smiles, wishing him a merry Christmas. Kevin responds by running into her embrace, revealing that despite his resourcefulness he is still a child who missed his mother. O'Hara's performance radiates warmth, captured by physical details and the tenderness of the final hug. Her sudden passing at 71 after a brief, unspecified illness has struck many as a gut punch.
Read at Slate Magazine
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]