Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Am I doing a movie review this Thanksgiving Day? You bet I am! And for this special Thanksgiving Day review, I choose the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles—that 1987 vehicle starring Steve Martin and the late great John Candy.

Why do I choose this movie to review, you might ask? Quite simple: out of the plethora of holiday movies out there, this is the one and only movie about Thanksgiving, and because this little-known Thanksgiving movie exhibits John Candy in perhaps his greatest performance ever.

The story is pretty simple: Steve Martin and John Candy are travelers who stumble onto each other as they try to leave New York for Chicago two days before Thanksgiving. Martin plays the ever-uptight Neal Page, while Candy plays the annoyingly lovable Del Griffith, combining into a kind of modern-day odd couple. En route to Chicago, their plane gets diverted to Wichita, Kansas, because Chicago gets snowed under, and Martin and Candy have to rely on each other to make it to Chicago by Thanksgiving Day . . . and sadly for them—but good for us!—it’s disaster after disaster for them on the road.

Here's a quick list of the more classic scenes from the movie:

• Martin chasing the cab down Park Avenue in New York City
• Martin and Candy waking up snuggling together in bed, each one forgetting that they’re not at home with their wives but with a total stranger
• Martin getting picked up off the ground by the taxi driver . . . in a not-so-painless way
• Their car catching fire on the side of the highway
• Candy getting both arms stuck in the driver’s seat and having to drive with his knees
• Candy driving down the wrong side of the highway (video below)

Martin has a very memorable scene where he loses it quite shockingly with a car rental agent, tossing out F-bombs like spit. In the late '80s, this may have been a bit more shocking to comedy (even though by then it had very firmly found its place in mainstream drama and action movies; case in point, Die Hard), but it really showcases Martin at his most funny—because even in his fury, he's still the funny man. I'd have to chalk that one up to his delivery of the lines, his facial mannerisms, his tone of voice. He knows precisely how to make this tirade into a moment of pure hilarity.

As to John Candy, I will proudly call this his greatest film role. He did a small bit of physical transformation by donning a mustache, and I don't know if he wore a wig or had it done specially, but his hair was tinted red and curled up—which somehow managed to look perfectly natural on him! His Del Griffith comes across as the luckiest man alive, either because he knows all the right people and can make all the right moves with them, or because he has the most impressive run of good luck that can frustrate the hell out of anyone else (like how he so easily gets a hotel room after their plane lands in Wichita, while Martin struggles desperately to find one). Yet his Del Griffith comes off as the most sympathetic character. He’s just a man trying to do the right things to get by (as superbly exemplified when he manages to sell shower curtain rings as earrings in a St. Louis bus station), yet you can sense his need for human contact and companionship (as exemplified by his hurt when Martin says to him in the St. Louis diner that they should go their separate ways).

Candy had two shining moments in this film. The first came early; the second came almost at the end. The first scene I refer to is when he and Steve Martin finally have their fight in the hotel room, where Martin lays all his anger and guilt on Candy really heavily. It's almost like he was deliberately trying to hurt him, and after he's spent from his long tirade, there's a terrible pause where the tension in the air is painful. And the beaten-down Candy very slowly, almost tearfully, and I dare say graciously regains enough of his composure to defend himself. He doesn't try to hurt Martin or counterattack his character, he doesn't angrily decry his accusations—instead, Candy admits to many of the faults, knows that he has weak spots that need improvement . . . but despite those weak spots, Candy knows that he's still a good human being. His one stuttered line says it all, "I like me! My wife likes me. My customers like me. Because I’m the real article. What you see is what you get."

The second moment for Candy to shine comes at the end of the film. After he and Steve Martin have parted ways, Martin goes off on the train—and then comes back. That final face-to-face meet, where Del's truth finally comes out, is perfectly executed by Candy, and knowing his truth makes your heart hurt with sorrow.

But knowing his truth is important, because this, coupled with the final reunion of Martin with his family at the end of the film, really shows why it’s important to be thankful for the things you have in life. Here, Steve Martin's Neal is grateful for his wife, his children, his family . . . and John Candy's Del is grateful for his friend Neal.

And John Candy’s smile just before the final credits roll is genuinely heart-warming.

A perfect 10 for this Thanksgiving Day.