Formative Performances: Catherine O’Hara in “Home Alone”

Catherine O’Hara is a comic genius.

This is a fact. Do not argue with me on this.

If you haven’t seen her work in the Christopher Guest films Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show, you are missing out. (I haven’t seen A Mighty Wind or For Your Consideration yet because I am a terrible fan.) If you haven’t seen her work in SCTV and her impersonations of Katharine Hepburn and Tammy Faye Bakker and Lola Heatherton, you are missing out. Go rent these immediately.

I’ve listed some of her best work above, but my very first introduction to Catherine O’Hara was inHome Alone. She’s not the character or actor most people remember from this movie – they remember the kid and the criminals – but I loved  her as the mom trying to get home to her kid. It would have been so easy to play this character with too much sweetness, to play this scene with nothing but sentiment and feeling, but her frustration and snapping make me laugh even as I’m sympathizing with her.

(Yeah, just try to ignore the “Elvis” captions because it’s the only clip I could find of this scene.)

When I was kid, I remember being chilled and scared when she said she would sell her soul to the devil (Catholic upbringing alert!) As a kid and an adult, I crack up laughing at her frustrated, “This is CHRISTMAS! The season of PERPETUAL. HOPE!”