Planes, Trains and Automobiles: The Perfect Movie to Watch This Thanksgiving

Planes, Trains and Automobiles: The Perfect Movie to Watch This Thanksgiving

    Happy Thanksgiving! It is time to sit back, relax, spend time with family and friends, and eat some delicious food. But it is also the perfect time to watch a festive Thanksgiving movie. “What is a Thanksgiving movie?” one may ask. I feel that the best Thanksgiving movie, and most likely the most popular one, is the classic Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

    Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a 1987 comedy movie directed by John Hughes, the master of 80’s comedy movies. It also stars two of the best comedy actors during that time, Steve Martin and John Candy. This classic follows Neal Page (Steve Martin) trying to get home to spend Thanksgiving with his family. However, after his flight home gets canceled due to a passing snowstorm, Neal must travel with Del Griffith (John Candy), who Neal finds extremely annoying. Together, they have to go through the challenges of the madness of holiday travel so they can both spend Thanksgiving with those they love. 

    There’s really nothing too special about this movie other than the fact that it is a nostalgic, festive holiday movie. This movie also has a slight charm to it. John Hughes did an excellent job writing and directing this movie. As stated, John Hughes is a master of 80’s comedies. He knows how to write relatable, funny jokes and he knows how to time them as well. Most, if not all the jokes hit. The cinematography and editing help with that. If you have a weak camera angle that doesn’t help show or enhance the joke, or if the editing is not paced correctly, the joke will not hit.

    With this movie, all of the jokes hit. That is all thanks to John Hughes and his directing. All of the decisions he made contributed to this movie becoming a classic. John Candy and Steve Martin did a great job acting in this movie. They have great chemistry together and they were efficiently acting off of each other. These two made the movie, and it could have been different if they weren’t in it. They were both hilarious and delivered the great jokes that John Hughes wrote well. 

    Planes, Trains, and Automobiles doesn’t have anything special to make it a stand-out movie, but with its cheer and charm, it is a nostalgic holiday movie that is always fun to watch on Thanksgiving. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles had received very good reviews receiving a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and 7.6/10 on IMDb. This is an overall great movie that I highly recommend watching on Thanksgiving as it will complete your day.