The genius behind Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
[This is an edited re-post from a prior Substack post on November 21, 2025.]
This coming Tuesday, November 25th, marks thirty-eight years since the American classic movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles was released. In 1987, that was a Wednesday, making it “Thanksgiving Eve.” By then I was well-into my journey toward academic probation in my freshman year at college 🤣 And while I didn’t have an inkling that in just one year, I’d be celebrating my first major holiday in the Navy, at that moment I was excited to be home for the long weekend. Like many families, we had a tradition of: eating enough food to feed several villages of starving African children; and then forcing our uncles and cousins into the street for some pot-bellied touch football.
I was the baby of the extended family, always at the mercy and whims of others. But by 1987, I was now a “grown up” and could make “adult” decisions, like “not adding cranberry sauce to my plate” or “going to the movies on a family holiday.”
Honestly, I’m not sure I saw it on Thanksgiving Day, or not. But I do know I went and saw it in the theaters on opening weekend, because it had a small piece of a song in the soundtrack, by some obscure new-age band I listened to, which I thought was cool.
I’d only seen John Candy in three things up to that point: Splash, which I thought he was genius in; Stripes, in which he was outshined by the bigger names; and Volunteers, which was “mehhh” before that expression had been invented. And I honestly had never thought, at that point, that Steve Martin was funny. All my friends a few years earlier would quote The Jerk like it was a part of S.A.T. prep. And don’t even get me started on Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.
Both men had their moments in PT&A, but there is one scene that hits me in the feels every time. I’ve seen the scene twice recently. My wife and I watched a new documentary on the late John Candy about a month ago, in which they played it. And I watched the full movie about a week later. You probably know the one I’m going to mention.
The movie hasn’t even hit the midpoint, yet, and Steve Martin’s Neal Page character has reached his boiling point with John Candy’s Del Griffith antihero. The well-meaning but over-the-top everyman has deserved, to some degree, to be told off—but not the way Neal does it. The one-minute string of insults start off clever and funny, but it devolves into being just downright vicious. But in the moments that writer/director John Hughes cuts the view to Del’s face, an evolution takes place. I think it’s one that most of us can relate to more than we tell people.
We see real pain in Candy/Del’s eyes—not just great acting, but the genuine sadness of an actor who was used to people judging him for his size. The moment is so real, one can’t help but feel sorry for this fictional character. Then Del launches into his own defensive speech about being an easy target, admitting he talks too often, explaining that it is because he cares too much, then explains with a shaky voice: “I like me!” We don’t know it, yet, but this is a man with no home and family.
To Martin’s credit, he brings home Neal’s mood-shift awesomely, too. Neal immediately regrets the things he’s said. He offers a non-apology and abandons his plan to dissolve the temporary partnership. The next morning, the men reach a new definition of personal understanding while ascertaining that Del’s hand is not, in actuality, “between two pillows down there” in his role as the big spoon in a tiny bed.
From there, the buddy-flick progresses through the usual hi-jinks in the long, winding trek home. Fate pulls them apart, before putting them back together like the glued fragments of a broken teapot handle. In the end, Neal figures out Del is a widower and brings him home where we have a sappy reunion and a quick “The End.”
I think there are several smart plays that make this script so relatable. The first is the holiday itself. Talk to any movie or holiday buff, and they’ll rattle of a list of “must watch” Christmas flicks that the family re-watches every year. But when do they start watching them? Many consider “Thanksgiving,” or even the weeks leading to it, as the official kickoff to “repeat season.” While youth fire up the television, old men stuffed with turkey and dessert lay in recliners, suffering diabetic comas whilst dreaming of the swimming pool gal from Christmas Vacation, who is warming her hands on their Yuletide logs.
But how many great Thanksgiving movies are there? Go ahead. Google it. I’ll wait. There are a few decent movies in which a portion of the plot crosses the holiday. But few movies, and arguably none as good as PT&A, are about the holiday itself.
Next, there is Candy’s “I like me!” I think most of us can relate in some small part to the sentiment of feeling like loners. I think a few of us relate to it a whole lot. Then there’s Candy’s size, which was a big factor in his pre-mature death just seven years later. I am obese, but not “John Candy” obese. But someone I love more than life itself is that size. I know how pained he is by the very real snickers and stares he gets. I know how badly his feelings have impacted his mind and mental health. My heart breaks thinking about it, and every time I watch that scene, it breaks for John Candy, too.
That scene is the pivotal moment for the entire movie. It is Neal’s wake up call to stop acting like the kind of person he would never let his daughter marry. It reminds him that even something as important as getting home for Thanksgiving is not worth the cost of treating people horribly. There is a real cost to being cruel, and some of the payment comes from the soul of the bully.
I think the last smart thing about the movie is not just Neal’s revelation about Del’s situation. We are touched when he goes back down the “EL” line to find his buddy and take him home. But in the moment before that, he is reflecting. The long, arduous journey is nearly over. But rather than the many terrible moments of the trip, he starts thinking of the funny ones. This leads him to realize he will miss the annoying but affable giant. And that is what leads to his intuition that he’d been missing the clues all along.
Friends, I know this newsletter wasn’t quite as steeped in humor as usual. There is no “conversation inside my head” this week. I just felt like writing this pre-Thanksgiving reminder in the hopes that you’ll be inspired this coming week. Please love your family and friends! Please be patient with people. Please remember we are all dealing with our own crap, and some of the people in your world are just barely holding it together.
God bless you and Happy Thanksgiving!
