As though to further build on his infamous 2020 tweet (back when Twitter was still Twitter) that went, “Wanna feel old? I’m forty now,” Macaulay Culkin has seen fit to unleash a Home Alone-inspired commercial that’s sure to do just that: make his generation feel old. The reason being that it’s an ad for a company called Home Instead, which offers in-home care for the elderly. However, Culkin at least isn’t saying that he a.k.a. Kevin McCallister is in need of that in-home care for someone of his “advanced” age of what is presently forty-five. No, (home) instead, what Kevin is saying is that he (de facto, his generation) is so “old” now that his mother is coming toward the end of her life. One presumes that means Kate McCallister (Catherine O’Hara), who, apparently, didn’t have enough kids—five—to get at least one of them to move into their massive abode and take care of her. Even if only in the hope of currying enough favor to become first in line to inherit said abode.
Kevin, though, is ostensibly doing more than Buzz (Devin Ratray), Jeff (Michael C. Maronna), Megan (Hillary Wolf) and Linnie (Angela Goethals) can be bothered to. This much is made clear from the outset of the commercial, when a close-up on “Mom’s Safety Plan”—still written in the same childlike handwriting [in crayon no less] that eight-year-old Kevin (though Culkin was ten at the time) had—is shown. So it is that the viewer is made to understand that Kevin is now using his Lucy Ricardo-esque mind not to set traps for bad men trying to break into his house, but for his aging mother who can, at this moment in time (because of her presumed senility/la-di-da vibes), turn the house into one giant booby trap without meaning to. And there’s no mention of Kevin’s father, Peter (John Heard), needing some kind of “safety plan,” which allows one to assume that he already passed away (as Heard also did in real life), only adding to the “mortality feels” for those children who grew up with Kevin.
Indeed, this Home Instead commercial is a far cry from what Culkin was doing even just seven years ago, in 2018 (the same year the OG Home Alone house was gut-renovated), when he saw fit to “spoof” the movie by way of a Google Assistant commercial, wherein he relives some of the key moments of his “home alone” time with the help of Google’s AI technology (then still germinal compared to now) to get him through some of the more “arduous” tasks of his “House to yourself” day, a calendar event scheduled for December 20th from eight a.m. to eleven p.m. And while there were allusions to his own “old age” at that time (e.g., clutching to his back after jumping up and down on the bed), from what the viewer could tell, both of his parents seemed to be alive and well at this juncture. “Out and about,” as it were. But, evidently, what a difference seven years can make, with Kate suddenly being an ostensible widow who can barely care for herself without risking some kind of injurious accident. That’s the message Kevin gets across right away with that elaborate “Safety Plan” of his, the finer points of it including the following “measures”: “stapled quilts to windows,” “eliminate scented candle collection,” “banana peel detector,” “turbo stairlift (‘how fast is too fast?’),” “raised toilet seat,” “wrap banister,” “super secure carpet,” “retinal scanner for fridge” and “self-tipping bucket for ice.” Then in the corner, in that same crude, patently-done-by-a-child handwriting is the proud declaration, “By Kevin McCallister.” Perhaps an unwitting nod to the longstanding belief/criticism that millennials are “forever children” (even if Culkin is technically of the Gen X or “xennial” era).
In any case, after Kevin admires his plan, director Jody Hill then cuts to him bubble wrapping the plants, trees and Christmas decorations in the front yard as he tells someone (presumably one of his absent siblings—though certainly not Buzz) over the phone, “I’m just worried about Mom being by herself, you know? What if she falls down or gets snowed in?” Kevin then adds, “They never did catch that South Bend Shovel Slayer.” At that moment, the eerie scraping sound effect of a shovel sends Kevin jumping, causing him to drop his roll of bubble wrap, which then careens right toward Old Man Marley’s (Roberts Blossom) granddaughter, the one viewers caught a glimpse of in the original film when Marley was watching her perform in the church choir. This being the moment when he sat down next to Kevin in the same pew toward the end of Home Alone. It’s during this scene that Marley assures him, “You can say hello when you see me. You don’t have to be afraid.” And also when he explains to Kevin that he’s been estranged from his son for many years, which is why he’s watching his granddaughter perform at her rehearsal rather than the actual show later that night—he’s not otherwise welcome.
Now, thirty-five years later, that granddaughter who’s “about the same age” as Kevin, takes in the sight of his skittishness and remarks, “You’re a jumpy one, aren’t ya?” Almost as if to throw it back in eight-year-old Kevin’s face that he once had the gall to ask Old Man Marley, “No offense, but…aren’t you a little old to be afraid?” To which Old Man Marley foreshadowingly said, “You can be a little old for a lot of things. You’re never too old to be afraid.” Something Kevin appears to understand all too well now, based on this Home Instead commercial that features him not only jumping at the sight of a neighbor shoveling snow, but also living in constant fear that his matriarch is going to hurt herself while she suffers through the rigors of being home alone as Kevin once did during that Christmas of 1990.
Suddenly feeling silly for having been scared of her, Kevin explains, “My mom’s getting older, so I’m, uh—” “Wrapping the house?” Knowing it sounds absurd, Kevin replies, “Yeah, yeah.” The granddaughter, who continues to remain nameless and who can’t even seem to be found somewhere in the “credits” to put an actress’ name to a Maggie Gyllenhaal-esque face, offers, “Have you tried talking to her…about getting a little help?” Understanding that the conversation is meant to mimic the one he shared with Old Man Marley in the church pew, Kevin admits, “I’m afraid to bring it up.”
Granddaughter Marley then parrots both Kevin and her grandfather’s words back to him when she advises, “The scariest part is starting that conversation. Then at least you’ll know and can stop worrying about it. It’s not easy, but how you feel about family is a complicated thing… How was that?” Kevin regards her reverently and says, “It was just like your grandfather.” As the two then continue to exchange pleasantries over her “performance,” the words, “Home Instead,” followed by its tagline, “Home doesn’t have to mean alone,” appear onscreen. Thereby confirming the notion that everyone, someday—even erstwhile “ultra-independent” Kevin—will be at the mercy of requiring help from others in their old age (and no, even AI [probably] can’t “sub in” to provide that kind of help). First, it starts with your parents and then, all of the sudden, it’s you. Though, on the plus side for Culkin’s bank account, that means a definite “sequel” commercial in the future (or what remains of it) with Home Instead. Because the potential for milking Home Alone for an extra bit of cash shouldn’t have to end just because Culkin’s childhood did.
Incidentally, the follow-up to his abovementioned goading tweet, “Wanna feel old? I’m forty now,” was Culkin responding to the outcries against reminding people of their mortality with, “It’s my gift to the world: I make people feel old. I’m no longer a kid, that’s my job.” One that Culkin will evidently continue to excel at as much as he did in the art of being a child actor.
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