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| Four Christmases Too Many By: Isabella Hecht Four Christmases (PG-13) is a Christmas movie, but not a family movie. Generally those two tend to go together, but Four Christmases is likely to remind all of us the negatives of going home for the holidays, without any of the positives. Four Christmases is the story of Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon), who are quite happy in their state of zero responsibilities. They don’t want to get married, and they don’t want to have children. Every year for Christmas, Brad and Kate have been making up outrageous excuses (they will be inoculating babies in Burma) to avoid spending Christmas with their families, while they go on tropical island vacations. In this particular instance, their lie is found out and they are forced to visit each of their four divorced parents for Christmas. The first visit is the most difficult to watch, truly cringe-worthy. Brad and Kate visit Brad’s father (Robert Duvall) and brothers, redneck-stereotypes living, oddly enough, in San Francisco. Brad gets beaten up and humiliated by his brothers, then proceeds to destroy the living room while trying to put up a satellite dish. The satellite dish, the visit, and the movie crash and burn right there. Brad and Kate hurriedly extricate themselves and head over to the house of Kate’s mother (an oddly spacey Mary Steenburgen), who lives in a “cougar den” full of women, then to Brad’s hippy mother (Sissy Spacek), and finally to Kate’s father (Jon Voigt). At each location, the couple is constantly bombarded with children, especially babies, and Kate begins to entertain the notion of having children, though after viewing the horror shows that are their families, it is hard to understand why. When Brad is unenthusiastic about the idea of a baby, it seems like it will be the end of the relationship. But they get back together. Because it’s a Christmas movie and you know they will. The movie is full of Oscar talent sadly wasted. All four of the parents, as well as Kate have won Oscars. Sissy Spacek is in the movie for about five minutes, and Jon Voight for even less. Reese Witherspoon, a wonderful dramatic actress, is definitely out of place in a slapstick comedy that isn’t even funny. She tries too hard to be serious. Only Vince Vaughn seems aware that the movie is not supposed to be serious, yet that doesn’t make him likeable or funny, since most of the time you wish he would just stop talking. The movie has glimmers of occasional humor along the way, but it’s generally of the variety involving bodily fluids. The most fun you will get out of seeing Four Christmases will be in watching the incredible height difference between Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. |
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