“Four Christmases” is not your typical cheery holiday flick. Directed by Seth Gordon, it is a refreshingly lean comedy with a star-studded cast. Although the film starts out a little slow, and Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn make a nauseatingly perfect couple, the movie provides a dose of light-hearted comedic entertainment.
“Christmases” focuses on Kate (Witherspoon) and Brad (Vaughn), a blissful unmarried couple living in San Francisco who have shrewdly estranged themselves from their divorced parents, going as far as fabricating community service projects to shirk family celebrations every holiday.
This year, to skip out on their family Christmases, the couple tell their divorced parents they will be breast-feeding orphans in Guatemala this Christmas, though their actual plan entails couples massages and a snorkeling excursion in Fiji. However, bad weather, a delayed flight and an impromptu news interview on TV squashes the couple’s plans. Instead they are forced to attend four family celebrations, all in one day.
The family-packed day begins at Brad’s father’s (Robert Duvall) house, where Kate meets Brad’s professional wrestler brothers (Tim McGraw and Jon Favreau) who continually tackle Brad to the ground. The brothers seem borderline mute, though, and the movie could have benefitted from a little more action from Jon Favreau.
The couple next visits Kate’s mom (Mary Steenburgen) who is dating the local evangelical pastor. After some awkward baby spit-up and a spontaneous Christmas pageant, the pair head over to Brad’s mother’s (Sissy Spacek) before finally winding down with visit to Kate’s father (Jon Voight).
“Christmases” is ripe with awkward family moments and embarrassing childhood stories that will makes audiences wince at times and laugh out loud in empathy at others. Introducing significant others to your family is not always a fun thing (the main characters are borderline miserable for the entire 86 minutes), and “Christmases” capitalizes on this social discomfort with lots of comedy.
While the script is nothing astounding and could have benefitted from more action from Voight, Spacek, and Favreau, all of the characters serve to add a different component to the well-balanced comedic relief. Witherspoon’s subtle wit provides a surprisingly fresh counter to Vaughn’s ridiculous humor.
For any fan of Vaughn’s bumbling humor who can relate to the sometimes all-too familiar embarrassing family interaction on the holidays, “Four Christmases” serves as a stress-free, good-humored holiday entertainment package.
Grade: AB
