Potentially unpopular opinion: My Girl (1991) is the better than Home Alone (1990), both Macaulay Culkin films.  Then again, it is not a fair comparison.  The latter stars Culkin, whereas in the former, he is only a secondary character.  This might also sound like a crazy argument given how iconic is Home Alone, which made and broke Culkin’s career.  With My Girl, I recall it getting attention at its release because of his presence, but that it was popular in its own right.  In any case, I enjoyed it because it has more substance.  That is not to say that Home Alone was shallow.  It has its moments, especially when Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) encounters Marley (Roberts Blossom), an old man all the kids in the neighborhood are afraid of, but who turns out to be a nice guy.  God can bring healing, and while that is not the ultimate message in Home Alone or My Girl, it is good to recognize when films do relate to what God can do.  In this respect, My Girl is no different, but like its cinematic cousin, it has its moments.

There is something different about My Girl, who is eleven-year-old Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky), in that she is telling her father, Harry Sultenfuss (Dan Aykroyd), that she thinks she has cancer.  She is constantly believing she has some terminal instance, which seems to be her own idiosyncratic way of handling coming of age.  The idea of aging is a tricky one in her household as her father is a mortician, and they live in their family funeral parlor.  She also plays tricks on the neighborhood kids, getting them to pay a few pennies in order to potentially see a cadaver.  She does not take them to the mortuary in the basement, but shows them her dementia-riddled grandmother (Ann Nelson), who looks sort of like a corpse already.  The person who does not take part in this activity is her best friend, Thomas J. Sennett (Macaulay Caulkin).  Actually, Vada spends much of her time with him going on about how much she likes Mr. Jake Bixler (Griffin Dunne), one of her school teachers on whom she has a crush.  It is summer of 1972, and they pass by Mr. Bixler one day as they ride their bikes through their small Pennsylvania town.  Vada tries to impress Mr. Bixler by telling him how she had completed the summer reading curriculum already, and she is now working on War and Peace (1867).  When asked what he is doing for work between school years, Mr. Bixler says that he has a creative writing class for adults going, which costs $35 per person.  Thomas does not understand why anyone would want to labor while on vacation, though getting spend extra time with Mr. Bixler sounds great to Vada.  All the same for her there are other developments closer to home that are causing her concern.  Namely, Shelly DeVoto (Jamie Lee Curtis) has come to the Sheltenfuss household in response to an ad for a beautician.  She also does not flinch when Harry informs her that the position involves doing make-up for the deceased.  As she begins working, she also comes into contact with Vada.  At first, their interactions are friendly, and Shelly is happy to show Thomas and Vada the inside of the motor home in which she lives.  Even though things are friendly, Vada steals money from Shelly in order to enroll in Mr. Bixler’s writing course.  Some of the pretext is dropped when Vada notices a relationship developing between Harry and Shelly.  It takes increasingly blunt hints for the normally aloof Harry to finally ask Shelly out, to play bingo of all activities.  When they finally do, Vada brings Thomas along to spy on how they are behaving with one another.  Vada also watches with interest from her bedroom window when they get home from what was evidently a good date.  This causes the girl to act out against this potential interloper despite Shelly’s efforts to ingratiate herself with Vada.  It comes to a head while Vada goes with Harry and Shelly to the fair.  As they walk amongst the rides, they take Vada aside to explain that Harry and Shelly are engaged.  Vada takes out her frustration on Shelly while doing the bumper cars, but Vada talks about the situation with Thomas.  In wondering why people get married, Thomas says that this is just what people do when they get to the right age.  To her, this means that she needs the practice, so they share a kiss.  Later, as they are walking through the woods, she loses her mood ring while they are running away from a bees’ nest they knock down.  He is especially keen to escape and avoid any stings, to which he is deathly allergic.  As they get back to their neighborhood, he asks that if things do now work out for her, that she consider him as a husband.  She smiles and pedals home.  He, however, returns to where she had lost her ring.  Though he locates the toy jewelry, he is swarmed by the still active nest and stung to death.  The police come to the Sultenfuss’ to tell them what has happened.  It is Harry who breaks the news to his daughter.  Vada is devastated and does not emerge from her room for days.  The wake for Thomas is held in their parlor, but even then she will not come out despite urging from Harry and Shelly.  Finally, during a sermon, she comes downstairs, approaches the coffin, and bursts out crying when she sees Thomas without his glasses.  She then takes off, running to Mr. Bixler’s house.  She takes this opportunity to tell her teacher that she loves him, but the situation becomes worse when his girlfriend comes out to see them.  After spending the rest of the day hiding where she used to hang out with Thomas, Vada finally comes home to a worried Harry and Shelly.  Harry tucks her in, comforting his daughter by talking about how it is not her fault that her mother (not pictured) died during childbirth.  The film ends with Vada giving a poetic ode to Thomas in her creative writing course.

It is fitting to eulogize the dead as we see at the conclusion of My Girl.  We typically think of the word “eulogy” solely in the context of funerals, but its Greek and Latin roots do not specifically mention any connection to the dead.  It literally means “praise; good or fine language.”  When used in a Scriptural context, it means “blessing.”  This makes it even more apt to deliver at services for the deceased, especially for loved ones.  It is not just a good way of sending them into the afterlife, but a sign of a strong relationship.  When you have somebody saying such things about you after you have passed, then, evidently, you did something right while among the living.  Doing so blesses not only the dead, but the living.  Without these reminders, you can slip into a dark place.  This is true in the film of Harry.  Since his wife had died while giving birth to Vada, he had been more devoted to his work (ironically involving the departed) than caring for his daughter.  Such pain can rob of us of the joy God wants for us and leave us with that one obvious question many ask in such situations: why would God do this?  There is never a good explanation for such things, and this is the mystery of Faith.  We want to know all the answers, but sometimes there are events and times that are simply beyond our comprehension.  How we respond to such things speaks to how we practice Faith.  There is Harry’s solution, which is to focus on his career.  Shelly points out to him that life is not about death, adding that he should not ignore the living.  Our God is the God of life.  When we pass, especially if it is while in His good graces, then we can expect an immortality in Heaven with Him.  This might seem like an esoteric concept, so let me put it in simpler terms: God is real and so is Heaven.  This is something the film acknowledges, after a fashion, and it is one of the reasons I enjoyed it.

My Girl is also enjoyable if you like period pieces, and this one has a great sound track.  I wish I knew why Culkin did not make more films like this one.  I suppose I could look up that answer, but I do not feel like doing that at the moment.  I would rather be watching more movies like this one.