When happily unmarried San Francisco couple Kate and Brad find themselves socked in by fog on Christmas morning, their exotic vacation plans morph into the family-centric holiday they had, until now, gleefully avoided. Out of obligation, they trudge to not one, not two, but four relative-choked festivities, increasingly mortified to find childhood fears raised, adolescent wounds reopened and their very future together uncertain.
by seven6guy
on 18/12/2008 1 of 2 people found this review helpful
With the looming financial crisis and Christmas peeking at us around the corner, 4 Christmases doesn't come at a better time to bring some xmas cheer. Story of a couple whose holiday plans were thwarted by bad weather and unable to fly out of the country to avoid visiting their families during the holiday season. I am sure that many of us relate to this but it usually happens during CNY (people wanna avoid giving ang pows!) What happens to the couple in the next few hours when visiting their family is that they have to face their fears, their past, their dysfunctional families and embark on a path of self discovery and love. Very relatable and funny, it makes me think that my very own family ain't that bad after all. Nice messages and some very funny lines, this movie is enjoyable, extreme to some extend but still funny.
So-called Christmas movies have traditionally been passing 'weaker' pictures aimed at the holiday box office with some optimism because people will want to watch anything marketed as such anyway. At more than 100 minutes, "Four Christmases" is simply four too many.
Blighted by overlong weak moments, themselves punctuated by plenty of unsatisfactory non-climaxes, onscreen chemistry between leads Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn are a no-go from the start, not only because the bloke is two heads taller than the bird, but because they just don't make a very interesting couple.
The best thing about "Four Christmases" will have to be Jon Favreau, who seems to have taken a cinematic continuum by graduating from Monica's wimpy boyfriend in TV's "Friends" more than ten years ago into a chicken-chomping redneck wrestler in this movie. His character would have gotten more laughs if played up more, especially when Vaughn and him did hit comedic sync in "Made" (2001).
As it is, the film is a muted celebration of American dystopia told through a happily unmarried couple, exploring an extension of the same in-law discomfort in movies like "Meet The Parents". Humour is sparse and limp (extended cootie joke comes to mind), although production values are more than adequate.
Some of the old timers are in here - Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Dwight Yoakam. It would've made better entertainment to simply see them beat their kids up with a baseball bat since "Four Christmases" is not really a family film anyway. Watch it because there's nothing left to watch.
Production Photos - Click thumbnail for larger photos
