Catherine O’Hara knew that motherhood can be a slapstick comedy

Motherhood’s long association with martyrdom is a real turn-off. Few understood that better than Catherine O’Hara, who played one of cinema’s most self-sacrificing moms – and several of its least.

As harried Kate McCallister in “Home Alone,” she hurtles across the Atlantic and back for the sake of reuniting with her youngest son, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), who was accidentally left behind in Chicago at Christmas.

A quarter of a century later, on “Schitt’s Creek,” she regaled us with Moira Rose...