A massive Home Alone plot hole has finally been explained

25 years since Kevin McCallister was left home alone at Christmas while his irresponsible parents holidayed in Paris, a plot hole has been explained.

Admittedly we have never lost sleep over the plot hole, in fact we’ll hold our hands up and say we didn’t even notice it.

However, it’s presumed the McCallister’s can’t call Kevin because a tree has severed the phone line at the house. But: 'How does Kevin call for a pizza?' We hear you cry in bewilderment - a pivotal action that, while leading towards one of the best scenes in the entire film, should theoretically be impossible. 

Reddit user Phire has a reasonable explanation:

I always assumed the tree actually severed the main trunk line to the whole town, but local calls within the same exchange still worked.

The Huffington Post followed up his theory with AT&T Vice President-Federal Regulatory Hank Hultquist who confirmed it was entirely plausible.

Everything is changing now because all of this phone capability is moving into the cloud, but in 1990, that was absolutely a plausible scenario.

 

 When you’re trying to call from Paris, now you’re relying on a whole series of connections including undersea cables, any one of which could have a problem, which would prevent you from reaching some particular telephone number.

Plot hole filled, ya filthy animals.

Reddit thread here.