Just as there’s something universal in myths of two people falling deeply in love at first sight, we can all relate, perhaps even more so, to the hot sting of hatred at first sight, especially during transportation. Deservedly or not, the moment a child starts crying from the window seat or an Uber Driver wants to introduce his self-produced SoundCloud album, loathing begins to fester within the soul. No movie better taps these feelings than the late period John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles. From the blabbermouth airplane seatmate to the road trip karaoke star, John Candy’s character Del Griffith embodies every reason to hate travel. For this reason, the movie should be excruciating, no matter how funny some of the gags are. Yet what keeps this comedy fresh and popular to this day while Hughes’ other efforts in the vacation comedy genre (looking at you, The Great Outdoors) fade from memory is the heart at the center of the Candy.

The film follows the journey home for Thanksgiving by white collar Neal Page (Steve Martin) as he navigates a variety of vehicles across the country. His divine unluckiness crosses his journey with Candy’s Del Griffith, “American Light and Fixture Sales Director, shower curtain ring division.” The friendly oaf’s clumsiness and over- friendly nature clashes with Neal’s hope for an easy flight home in a classic slob vs. snob manner. But as one vehicle after another fails the pair, Neal’s prudishness softens as he makes a truly human connection with this unlikely friend. The two bond as fate preys on their flaws to play nasty trick after nasty trick on them, to outrageous and hysterical results.

A Lasting Legacy

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Image via Paramount

While the film was well regarded in its time, the lasting legacy of the movie within its genre is especially impressive. Comedy, as opposed to drama, ages quicker than milk in the movie theater. Jokes can quickly become outdated as they lose their cultural context. While plenty of the situations in Planes could be solved in minutes in a post smartphone world, the core truth of each of them is still the same. People on public transportation can be obnoxious. Getting a taxi or an Uber during peak times remains difficult and competitive. It’s annoying to talk to customer service when it’s the company that has messed up. The technology has changed, but the reality remains the same.

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The emotional intelligence that keeps the humor of Planes, Trains and Automobiles fascinating today springs from finding travel related gags that are relatable across decades, but distinctive enough not to be trodden over by copycats that seek to make cliches of them. The iconic f-bomb speech, delivered with sizzling spite by Martin, stands out not because it’s a scene of frustration with a help desk; those are common in comedy (you may remember Seinfeld’s “hold a reservation” monologue as another great example). The scene’s memorability comes from choosing specifics, whether in the script or the improvisation that Candy and Martin did on set, rather than relying on a general “this kind of a scene” mediocrity that plagues some of Hughes' other scripts. The script is self-involved, built to bake comedy, never stepping outside itself to laugh but rather enjoying the torture its inflicting on its characters and their attempts to grasp at the straws of sanity.

Relatable, Human Characters

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Image via Paramount Pictures

By the time Planes, Trains and Automobiles rolls up in 1987, Hughes had already written the first two National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, showcasing his chops in the travel comedy genre. While the films were financially successful at the time, critical reevaluation has been comparatively less kind to its brand of “wacky” comedy than that of Planes. While Hughes deserves his praise for creating teenagers that felt like real people for their time, his adults can come across as more caricature than character. Chevy Chase’s beleaguered-by-pompousness everydad in Vacation plays as a selfish cliché going through the motions of slapstick vacation narratives without any humanity.

Planes goes out of its way to avoid that trap with the simple dramatic scene that allows us larger laughs later. Near the end of the film’s first act, Neal has had it with Del. His anger swiftly cuts the salesman down with derisive comments about his mouthful of stories. “It's like going on a date with a Chatty Cathy doll. I expect you have a little string on your chest, you know, that I pull out and have to snap back. Except I wouldn't pull it out and snap it back, you would.” Del, eyes glistening with warmth, retorts, “You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you, but I don't like to hurt people's feeling… I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me.'Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.”

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Just like that, Hughes, Martin, and Candy have created real human beings in front of our eyes. From this moment on, Neal will recognize that perhaps he places value on the wrong things. While Del’s reality check stops him from being just a cliché in our eyes, Neal’s realization, like ours, is that there really is a person behind the gags. Both characters are wrong; both characters are right. Neal and Del have a little more depth for having flaws and strengths. While remaining genuine to the heightened reality of this movie, they hash out their differences like real, annoyed human beings. This allows Hughes to bring them to sillier heights later. When a ride in the bed of a truck freezes a dog solid or a toasty black rental car wrecks the pair’s motel room, the audience’s knowledge that these are real people rather than archetypes keeps the movie grounded; we want them to get home, and every setback is all the more hilariously “just my luck” for it rather than a cartoonishly obvious forced inevitability so that we can have a movie.

Perhaps the strongest reason Planes, Trains and Automobiles has endured so long is Hughes himself, whose legacy extends far beyond the reaches of one movie. His directing style, while rooted in the '80s with synth music and glowing warm film stock, is classically sentimental but simple. Aside from a few pretty flourishes for dramatic moments (look at the lighting and camera placement when Neal invites Del over for Thanksgiving), Hughes isn’t showy. He has a practical camera that knows when to pan up Gus’ son Owen to showcase his scariness, but then to get a closeup of his tobacco spouting face. While plenty of more recent comedy directors have films that age into artifacts of their time with either flashy “watch what I can do” edits or dull cameras that wait motionless and dead for their actors to do something interesting and then capture it without prejudice towards the audience laughing or not, there is something charming about the sincere lack of cynicism in Hughes' direction. This direction is rare in modern studio comedies, and ensures Planes, Trains and Automobiles will continue being a classic for years to come.