Let me set the scene.
It’s 4:17 PM. You’ve been in the airport since roughly the Truman administration. The air smells like burnt Starbucks and the fear sweat of business travelers with layovers shorter than a quick breath. Your gate has changed three times. Your plane, apparently, is “on the ground,” which is an airline euphemism for “still somewhere over Albuquerque.” And the guy next to you has removed both socks and shoes and is now doing something with his toes that might be classified as a hate crime.
You, like most of us, try to maintain your dignity. You sip your overpriced, watery airport PBR can and pretend this is fine. You repeat affirmations in your head like “I am one with the journey” and “adventure is the detour”. But let’s be honest. You’re not one with anything. You’re one bad mood swing away from becoming a viral TikTok meltdown and getting banned from Delta and civilization.
In moments like this, I like to think of Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles; a man who does not rise above the situation. No, he tunnels directly beneath it like a very elegant mole, finds the subterranean river of rage we all have within us, and lets it erupt in the form of the most gloriously unhinged, swear-laden rental car monologue ever committed to film.
This is not hyperbole. This is gospel.
In the world according to John Hughes; a world of winter weather, middle-aged angst, and the miraculous Thanksgiving commute; Steve Martin’s character, Neal Page, is a highly-strung ad exec who just wants to get home to his family. You know, the classic Hughes setup: a decent guy whose life unravels like a ball of yarn in a kitten nursery. Along the way, he’s paired with John Candy’s bumbling but good-hearted shower curtain ring salesman, and the two embark on a disastrous odyssey involving malfunctioning trains, exploding rental cars, and enough Midwestern hospitality to drive any man into therapy.
But the apex; the Sistine Chapel ceiling of Hughesian exasperation; is when Neal, freshly deposited at a rental car lot with no rental car in sight, makes his slow, volcanic march back across the endless parking lot and up to the rental desk. His shoes are gone. His soul is fraying like a knockoff Gucci bag. And when the perky clerk (the incomparable Edie McClurg, who deserves an Oscar for her smug chewing gum work alone) chirps, “Welcome to Marathon! May I help you?” he just… breaks.
“You can start by wiping that fucking dumbass smile off your rosy fucking cheeks…”
Now, I don’t condone verbally abusing service workers. I want to be very clear about that. These are people, often underpaid and underprotected, surviving on caffeine, corporate platitudes, and whatever dark energy radiates from lost luggage. But let’s not pretend we haven’t fantasized; just for a flicker of a moment; about doing exactly what Steve Martin does here. About saying what we mean instead of what we’re supposed to. About being less “namaste” and more “nah, I’m stayin’ mad.”
This scene is perfect not just because it’s funny (though it is; it’s laugh-until-you-snort funny), but because it’s honest. Hughes knew that beneath the courteous veneer of American travel lies a simmering cauldron of suppressed fury. That the guy next to you in a neck pillow reading Blink might also be two gate changes away from existential collapse. That politeness in these situations is less a virtue and more a holding pattern before the inevitable crash.
And let’s talk about Martin’s delivery. Each curse is wrapped in velvet, set to music, and hurled like a Fabergé grenade. It’s not just profanity; it’s artisanal profanity. The cadence, the facial expressions, the way his lips purse with upper-class Midwestern repression and then just detonate. It’s as if Mr. Rogers took a hard turn into Quentin Tarantino territory and never looked back, which is something now I want to see on the big screen.
And McClurg, God bless her, doesn’t flinch. After enduring a verbal assault that would turn lesser mortals into stone, she smiles sweetly and says, “You’re fucked.” Reader, I screamed the first time I watched this when I was a kid in the ’80s.
There’s something deeply democratic about this scene. You don’t need to be rich or poor, liberal or conservative, from Peoria or Portland; if you’ve ever waited for a delayed flight with a vending machine dinner and a phone at 3% battery, you know this feeling. It is the universal language of modern travel: despair, wrapped in polyester, shouting into the void while trying not to cry in front of strangers.
And this, ultimately, is the beauty of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It isn’t just a comedy. It’s therapy. It’s the acknowledgment that sometimes, the journey isn’t noble. Sometimes it’s just a miserable, humiliating crawl through every possible transit nightmare; and that’s okay. That’s human. That’s hilarious, in retrospect.
So next time you find yourself in Gate B69 at Terminal Who-Knows-Where, your suitcase on its way to Latvia, your patience hanging by a thread, and the bar closed just before you got to the front of the line; don’t scream. Don’t cry. Just channel Steve. Look deep into the chaos and say, with elegance, with dignity, with all the fire of a man who has had enough and say:“I want a fucking car. Right. Fucking. Now.” And when they tell you, as they inevitably will: “You’re fucked,”; just smile. Because at least you’re not alone.
