Does anyone else feel very sorry for Kevin.

[TheirLastRolo]

It's boxing day so we're chilling out with a film and the film of choice is Home alone. Other than spending a significant portion of the film wondering what the other kids in the family might be called I've spent the rest feeling supremely sorry for poor Kevin.

DH thinks it's a fun uplifting film and that it's partly Kevin's fault whilst all I can think is the lad deserves a family that cares about him.

His uncles a jerk (for calling him a jerk).
His mum is a crap parent for sending her child to bed without dinner and I'm not 100% convinced she didn't leave him on purpose.

That's not to mention the fact they did it all again a year later...

YABU Kevin is a carrot d

And he's read the script so he knows it all works out okay.

😂😂

But you’re not being lighthearted, you’re saying that you wouldn’t be okay with a relative staying in your house if they spoke to your child like that. That’s not lighthearted 🤦‍♀️
Other posters have got the tone of their responses being lighthearted significantly more accurate than yours.

Kate and Peter are Kevin’s parents.

Sorry it didn't come across light-hearted it's hard to convey if you're joking online sometimes. I'm just passing the time whilst they all watch the film, it's not meant to be an in-depth analysis it's just a chat thread. Honestly it's not that deep.

Although I think I'd have sent his uncle to the attic instead.

Ah I genuinely never got that. 😆

@TheirLastRolo I agree with everthing you say. I thought parts of it are cruel like you. I have had this discussion before with people and they agree.

Us too.Buzz is a dick.

Poor little Kevin! I was also a child in the 90s and it wasn't normal parenting to totally forget your child. Obviously he's meant to just have got lost in the mix but I think most mothers feel terrible if they've sent their kids to bed on an argument and would seek him out the following morning if not before.

Anyway, as a parent watching it I see a resourceful little guy pushed really to breaking point by the time the ultraviolence begins. The way it's portrayed as "partially his fault" when a) he's 8, b) he's relentlessly bullied and belittled and c) his parents barely notice him feels quite unfair. I do think it appeals to kids' keen sense of justice though, and makes his ingenuity very cathartic.

And yes, I know it's a film 🙄

He's quite obviously the favourite that's for sure. 😂 Definitely no mistaking the golden child in that family. 😅

Kate and Peter are his parents ☺️

I thought you meant Kevin the carrot.

Sorry just seen the parents had been said,
I was too slow 😬

I watched it last week and did think Kevin was a little brat at times TBH, but still
unfairly treated. Buzz is an arse in both films. He has a cameo in the most recent one (Home Sweet Home Alone) which did amuse me however.

Yep defo!

We watched it with DS the other night and he was shocked. DH said that’s how parenting was in the 90s 😂

It was - I was ten in 1990, I didn't just make it up!

I grew up in the ‘90s too. It certainly wasn’t my norm or the norm for any of my friends and relatives.

Uncle Buck was on the other day and we joked that this was Kevin’s foster family after being removed for being left twice!

Catherine O’Hara was upset by some of the lines she had to say then too. She didn’t seem to think that they were normal.

David Cameron left his kid in the pub. Twenty-tens.

David Cameron left his kid in the pub. Twenty-tens

Yes and he was rightly berated for it. My parents wouldn’t have done that in the ‘90s let alone then. Of course you’ll always get foolish people and people treating children badly but I wouldn’t measure the norm by them.

Also if I recall it was supposedly a mistake on his part.

I watch Home Alone 2 yesterday for the first time .. great film and now I want those turtle doves

I adore Brenda Fricker too .. one of the very best

Ok so treating this film fairly seriously;

I think the line where he's on the bed at the beginning and his dad says something like Kevin go and tidy your room or something and he says 'go ahead and make me why don'tcha!' Portrays Kevin as a bit of a brat to see why his parents are annoyed with him/inclined to believe others when he's being annoying.

As the mum with about 14 people in the house she seems like on her last nerve I can sympathise as to how she left him with how stressful it is going the airport never mind oversleeping and then trusting the oldest niece to count heads who looks to be about 20ish.

She's either opened up the door to the attic and shouted up to him to get ready or because it was so last minute and so much stress she totally forgot he was even up there at all.

The only thing I've always wondered is surely on check in he'd be noticed but then maybe that is covered with the fact his boarding pass is binned when the milk and pizza is binned thrown away.

Buzz is the most obnoxious sibling ever and don't even get me started on uncle frank. But Kevin is pretty much a murderous psychopath whose torture methods increasingly escalate. I wouldn't want him in my house or on my holiday either tbh

I've watched these films with my daughter this year and felt the need to point out to her how Kevin was let down by his family!

I know they were running late in the first film but Kevin was the youngest of his siblings. Surely one of his parents would have remembered to check their youngest child was awake and dressed and on the taxi. Same as at the airport. Why did nobody check they had their youngest with them while running through the airport? And sitting on the plane. Ignoring the fact that the parents had paid for better seats than all their kids, wouldn't most mothers (yes I know he also had a dad but generally it's mothers who are more aware of their children's locations) check their kids were in their seats and had everything they needed before sitting down themselves?

And then the next year there is no excuse! Why on earth did they not have hold of Kevin's hand while they ran through the airport? And at the gate the guy said 'we'll make sure everyone gets on' but everyone was holding their own ticket. He had no way of knowing how many people were coming through that gate. One of the parents should have stood there until everyone was through the gate - and then they would have seen Kevin was not there.

Plus, Buzz was a dick to Kevin at the concert. I would have been furious with him afterwards and I would have understood why Kevin pushed him and wouldn't have insisted Kevin apologised.

I agree that if you think about it as a story it’s obviously much further from reality then say Gavin and Stacey but it’s the same with many other films, especially Christmas ones. I don’t think anyone here was watching Paddington today and believed that you could pick up a talking bear on your way through London.
But I felt the same way about Home alone, I was watching it a few weeks ago with DD and thought : why the social services are not involved?