As I started watching Four Christmases, it seemed to me that the movie couldn’t possibly be as bad as everyone said it was. It had a full year to break free of the stinky reviews, dashed expectations, and gossip about on-set tension, and I hoped very much that it would stand on its own. But it didn’t. In fact, the movie just gets worse as it goes along.
Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are a modern, no-strings attached kind of couple who have managed to avoid spending the holidays with their families for the duration of their relationship. Each year they tell their parents that they’re doing charity work in a foreign country (or something similar), then jet off for an exotic vacation by themselves. Their plans are thwarted, however, when they wind up on the local news after fog delays all flights leaving San Francisco. Caught in a lie, the two have no choice but to visit their divorced parents one at a time. Yes indeed, that means Four Christmases in one day. Strangely, each of these Christmases has a decidedly Southern twang, yet takes place within a drivable radius of San Francisco. Peculiar, no?
First on the list is Brad’s father (Robert Duvall), a sports-loving, beer-drinking, man’s man with redneck tendencies. At his home we also meet Brad’s rowdy brothers (Tim McGraw and Jon Favreau), and after a few amusing moments, comedy fails to ensue as we drift into pratfalls. From there we move on to a visit with Kate’s mom (Mary Steenburgen in cougar mode), wherein Kate uses a pregnancy test found in her sister’s bag, which is promptly stolen by her niece. Kate must then face her lifelong fear of the inflatable ball-filled castle a la Chuck E. Cheese (inexplicably located in the backyard and chock full of random children), and wrestle the test back from a bunch of jeering tweens – an odd turn of events to say the least.
By the time Kate and Brad visit his mother (Sissy Spacek), a cloud has settled over the couple. Kate has babies on the brain, and she can’t quite see how her relationship with Brad will ever allow for anything more than casual commitment and exotic vacations. Is this really the life she wants? And why is that all the other couples in their family seem so much closer than they do? Maybe they don’t have it figured out after all! Maybe they should call it quits and go their separate ways before Christmas is even over!
Brad heads back to his father’s house as Kate sets out to visit her dad who is…wait for it…pretty normal! We get more stunt casting with John Voight, but by now, the laughs are over. The famous and hilarious baby throw-up scene (“I’m gonna do it too!”) is but a memory, and we’re left with two gloomy, self-centered yuppies trying to figure out how to make themselves happy again.
I’m certain that the movie tried to buck tradition with all the blended families and modern relationships, but no matter how progressive you pretend to be, you can’t create a likable film with one-dimensional characters and protagonists who can’t even stand each other. There really is no chemistry between Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, and the size difference (which was supposed to be inherently funny) is somehow just wrong. It’s like The Jolly Green Giant dating Smurfette, and no matter what they do together, you look at them and think, “that’s kind of absurd. *That* goes against nature.” And so it seems that maybe they should break up and scrap the whole Christmas thing. What difference would it make?
I’d like to report that Kate and Brad reunite, bond with their relatives, get married, and embrace family life. But at the end of this journey, they’re right back where they were at the beginning. As a viewer, there’s just not much point in tagging along.
