Planes, Trains & Automobiles’ lesson against assumptions

Neal Page becomes a hero of sorts to his audience when he spews a string of seven-letter adjectives. But in his universe and narrative, he is most in need of rescuing, no matter how grudgingly grateful he is.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles’ most NSFW scene speaks to anyone whose watery ill fortune has ever crisscrossed with someone else’s electric merriment. When under stress, no one wants others acting as though they assume all is right and lacking urgency. Even if those others are innocent strangers.

Naturally, the car-rental desk clerk (Edie McClurg) deserves better than Neal’s (Steve Martin) bluster. She is merely playing by the customer service book. (Although it is somewhat head-scratching that she does not modify her tone in accordance with Neal’s visible dishevelment and vexation.)

But for Neal, Del Griffith’s (John Candy) unsolicited amiability the night before had been bad enough. (And what makes Del think Neal will sleep through his cracking, scratching and miscellaneous sounds?) And he has since failed to fulfill a simple promise to his wife via air, then by rail. He is running out of mulligans and time to reach his Chicago home for Thanksgiving.

The third title mode of transportation proves anything but the charm when his car is inexplicably absent. His own original assumption that a standard business trip will culminate in a hard-earned holiday is melting. The prospects look prickly, as he is on pace to leave his family assuming he is rating work over home.

With that predicament, how could the desk clerk’s cheerful greeting on the heels of her jocular family phone call come across as anything short of an affront? Letting that call cut into her shift is her worst infraction, and a minor one at that. But does she honestly think Thanksgiving Eve travelers will relate and let that go?

Granted, we only ask because protagonist bias is clouding our perspective. We are detached enough to guffaw at Page’s tirade, yet informed enough to accept his rationale.

But while virtually everyone has been the Neal in this dynamic before, most have also been the clerk or the Del at other points. That is what sustains the humor in Neal’s frenetic dash to salvage his pledge to Susan (Laila Robins). Who is he to establish his journey’s facility in advance?

Planes, Trains & Automobiles — whose 30-year anniversary falls this month — continues to resonate thanks to those intangibles. No 21st century technological advances could relegate a Martin-McClurg moment of that nature to retirement. Likewise, they would not necessarily improve Neal’s efforts to relay updates and explain himself to Susan.

It is nice to assume that uploading the all-crucial rental agreement to a smartphone would save it from Neal’s fit of fury. He would surely sustain enough of his common sense not to heave his device. As such, in 2017, he would be poised to produce the agreement upon request.

But sometimes a building’s Wi-Fi network thumbs its nose and takes an inconveniencing lunch break. Storyline, scene and lesson’s timelessness saved.

Under that circumstance, Neal’s inability to present the paperwork or its digital cousin would be beyond his control. Nonetheless, the clerk would still, in her own comical six-letter way, inform him he is out of luck.

That is where Neal’s assumption finishes its betraying bite on him. His next recourse results in yet another encounter with the delightfully dreaded Del.

Despite the businesslike rigidity Neal exudes at work, he lacks what one could call gracious professionalism elsewhere. This author first encountered the phrase “gracious professionalism” at a regional robotics tournament. The principle cautions that, on any given day of competition, a pair of teams can be pitted against one another in the morning, then as allies in the afternoon.

The next day? Don’t ask, and certainly do not assume a lasting rivalry with perfect strangers. Though you are competitors now, you may be codependents later, and again later on, then maybe even a third time.

Neal could have used that life lesson in his dash to the airport in New York. Or, more realistically, he could have evoked it for himself upon reencountering his contra cab-hailer at the gate. After all, the slim odds prevail when fate makes them reluctant roommates in a Wichita motel that first night.

The third-time adage comes off the sideline and enables a positive twist after the early tones of friction. The man who starts by setting off the protagonist’s predicament comes back to ensure it ends favorably.

Even slimmer chances surmount the odds after the car-rental debacle. As if Neal is facing karma for reprimanding the clerk’s thoughtlessness too severely, not to mention hypocritically, his own bubble of assumption bursts outside.

Soon after their second presumed permanent parting, Del shows up for him in St. Louis with the auto he needs. They are thus made travel partners in two states on a pair of back-to-back nights that feel anything but consecutive.

But here the third-time adage comes off the sideline and enables a positive twist after the early tones of friction. Del taketh away, Del shareth and Del giveth.

The man who starts by setting off the protagonist’s predicament comes back to ensure it ends favorably. Thus consummates the unlikely alliance in the holiday traveler-eat-holiday traveler dynamic.

The clash-turned-convergence works for sturdy sentiment like wet woes and charged-up cheer do for a fourth-wall third party’s explosive amusement. And it is almost as pleasantly surprising as the way the film’s sugary lessons team with the salt in Neal’s speech and the rest of the humor to preserve its appeal.

What, did you assume Planes, Trains & Automobiles — a forlorn Thanksgiving-time classic — would have been swallowed into irrelevance by the Christmas creep? Oh, boy.