By Geno McGahee
Vince Vaughn is one of those actors that you either love or hate. I love him. I am not in love with him. I find a lot of the flack that he gets is unwarranted. He takes a great deal of heat from the PSYCHO remake, but a shot for shot remake is a no win for any actor involved. Overall, Vaughn excels at comedy and he lands in this Xmas comedy: “FOUR CHRISTMASES”. Playing across from him is another star that is one of those love or hate people. Reese Witherspoon can really bring it but has been forever linked to her LEGALLY BLONDE series and if you don’t like those, you typically don’t like her. I think she is rather good and has comedic timing. So, Vaughn and Witherspoon together in a romantic holiday comedy…what could go wrong? Well, according to some sources, these two were not big fans of each other, but Witherspoon has come out to call it “hooey” and when I hear the word “hooey,” I tend to think that the person saying it is being honest.
Brad (Vaughn) meets up with Kate (Witherspoon) at a bar and it starts off rocky, but they become an item and soon become inseparable. The key to their success is their refusal to abide by accepted community activities. They won’t get married. They won’t have children, and they will not celebrate the holidays with family. They lie to their families and then go off to the tropics to be with each other. Unfortunately, their latest plans go bad when the flight is delayed and they are interviewed on TV in tropics gear. Their families see them and now they are obligated to make the rounds and see their parents. With all parents being divorced, this means four stops and the reason why we have the title “FOUR CHRISTMASES.”
The first stop is a stop at Brad’s father’s home. Howard (Robert Duvall) has three sons. Two of them are rough meatheads that wrestle and hurt each other with regularity. The other is Brad and he does not fit in with this group. During their gift-giving, Brad is unaware of the 10 dollar cap on gifts and gets one of the nephews the Xbox 360 and it starts a huge mess. This experience further supports Brad and Kate’s plans to never marry and to avoid family at all costs.
The next stop is over Kate’s mother’s house. Marilyn (Mary Steenburgen) has found religion since her divorce and it rules her life. Kate’s sister, Courtney (Kristen Chenoweth), has her first baby and freely discusses her sister’s embarrassing past to Brad. It’s uncomfortable and gets worse when the infant pukes on Kate, but it starts to open her eyes a bit. Despite all of the strangeness, there is something about family and the holiday that is appealing to her. In one of the best moments of the film, Marilyn takes her family to church and they put on a play where Brad and Kate play roles. Vaughn is really funny here and Witherspoon works well off of his absurdity. It was pretty amusing.
Brad’s mother, Paula (Sissy Spacek), is their next stop and some of Brad’s dirty laundry is aired. The most annoying part is that his former friend is banging his mom. Paula’s frank discussions about sex are pretty funny and when they play Taboo the board game, it’s pretty humorous. Kate and Brad begin to fall apart. Kate wants to open up discussions about children and marriage and it doesn’t bode well with her hubby. He drops her off at her dad’s home and takes off.
Creighton (Jon Voight) is happy to see his daughter and reflects on his approach to family and the holidays and how similar he and his daughter are. He lost a lot of years of family times in order to do his own thing and he regrets it now. This helps Kate realize that she has been missing a lot through her approach to life. Brad comes to that realization too after another visit to his dad and the two reunite and start family planning.
FOUR CHRISTMASES had an amazing cast that did their best with the material here, but the film was rather lost. It seems to want to be a comedy like SAVING SILVERMAN at times and then it wants to be a romantic comedy. It’s really a confused mess with much of the humor not working, despite the great attempts by the cast. It took six writers to write this film and that says a lot. There were too many cooks in the kitchen and it shows. The humor varies to gross out to clever at times, but there is no consistency. It feels like a lot of different ideas and styles crammed into one film and the movie is hurt by this a great deal.
I recommend FOUR CHRISTMASES, but considering the cast, this should have easily been a classic. Unfortunately, the writing just isn’t there. I give the cast an A for effort and the strong attempts at humor from Vaughn and Chenoweth, but it couldn’t be saved. If you’re in the Xmas spirit, watch it, but it’s not a must see.
Rating: 5/10
