Four Christmases
Hey, did this movie ever come out? I guess so – I saw it before it vanished. The economic burnout seems to have extended even to holiday-themed movies, even though this one is unconcerned with presents and Santa and so forth. The adorable couple of Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughan are best friendy in their sweet romance, and they skip the family crunch to take fabulous trips together – but not this year! Luckily for Hollywood, their parents live all within a 30 minute drive of each other (implausible red flag #1) so they can visit all four families in one horrible, baggage-sifting day. Hey, if Santa can do it… So they go visit all four families (the reason why is implausible red flag #2) alternating between his and hers, and obviously mayhem ensues.
Each set of parents (great casting – 4 Oscar winning parents!) seems oblivious to their child’s discomfort or the basic tenets of making a new person feel welcome, but maybe it’s punishment for all the times they were ditched by their progeny. Or that they are meeting the boy/girlfriend for the first time after four years, despite geographical convenience. (#3) Each set is a long way from anything resembling the kind of comfortable stability Witherspoon and Vaughn exhibit during their introduction, but maybe that’s a lesson in the importance of communication.
Reese and Vince have nice chemistry together and look sweetly funny together – she so wee and brittle and him so affably oafish. They have a no-marriage-thank-you felicity which seems inevitable after meeting their families, but it is pretty easily thrown by what is basically high-spirited, low-wattage cruelty from their various relatives (#4-7). Why would you cast Colleen Camp and Carol Kane and then give them almost no lines? Jon Favreau and Kristen Chenoweth get a little more chance to shine as Vaughn’s palooka brother and Witherspoon’s bizarre sister, and the parents all get a turn in the sun except sort of Jon Voigt. Creepy Dwight Yoakam was also underused but a little of him does go a long way.
Cue huge hidden childhood traumas (always good for a laugh, trauma) and wildly inappropriate oversharing, some slapstick, and a well-choreographed argument, and you have an over the top, sweet, inoffensive, improbable story with which few can identify, but there’s a little something in it for everyone too. The real interest lies in the parents small roles and watching the deterioration of our leads’ sanity over the course of one day of rolling around in their own dirty laundry. It kind of feels like they wanted to make 5 different holiday movies and couldn’t decide which plot line was best, so they rolled them all together, glossing over everything. I would have been more interested to follow one of the family arcs all the way through than do it this way. This wasn’t terrible, but wouldn’t you rather have a holiday movie you actually can watch with your family? “Oh no mom, when you do that, it doesn’t bother me at all.” (Tugs on collar nervously.)
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 11/26/08
Time in minutes 88
Director Seth Gordon
Studio New Line Cinema
