CNS Movie Review: Four Christmases

Four Christmases

By John Mulderig
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- "Four Christmases" (Warner Bros.) is a routine comedy that takes many a crude detour on the way to its muted affirmation of emotional maturity and commitment. Despite the innovative casting of dramatic actors in some of its supporting roles, documentarian Seth Gordon's first fictional offering boasts a few clever exchanges between its two leads, but little else.

Vince Vaughn plays San Francisco yuppie Brad and Reese Witherspoon is his live-in girlfriend, Kate. Each year these two make elaborate excuses to their dysfunctional families so they can spend Christmas in a tropical getaway.

When an airport shutdown ruins their plans and television news coverage reveals that they're bound for the beaches of Fiji, not the slums of the Third World to do charity work, as they'd claimed, their cell phones instantly come alive with calls from wounded relations. So it's off to visit all four of their divorced parents in one day.

Brad's father, Howard (Robert Duvall), leads a Cheez Whiz-and-beer existence in a shack in the hills, while his mother, Paula (Sissy Spacek), is a flighty disciple of the New Age.

Kate's mother, Marilyn (Mary Steenburgen), is dating evangelical pastor Phil (Dwight Yoakam) which leads her to volunteer stage-fright-stricken Kate and born ham Brad for the roles of Mary and Joseph in the church nativity play. (The result is an absurd, but not offensive, disarray.)

Her father, Creighton (Jon Voight), proves a more serious-minded character, reflecting on his past mistakes, including several divorces, and offering a grace before Christmas night dinner that emphasizes the importance of family.

Along their unwilling journey, Brad and Kate discover secrets about each other's past and, of course, realize they hardly know each other as well as they'd thought. Kate also begins to question their uncommitted lifestyle, which excludes both marriage and children.

Duvall pulls out all the stops as a front-porch cracker and Spacek is, by turns, dreamily vague and intently befuddled, especially during a board game in which, much to her competitive son's annoyance, Paula consistently misinterprets the rules.

But the weak script -- co-written by Matt R. Allen, Caleb Wilson, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore -- generally tends toward predictable slapstick, queasy subject matter (babies throw up with alarming frequency) and such tired gags as having elderly characters make risque remarks.

The film contains brief nongraphic, nonmarital sexual activity, cohabitation, much sexual humor, some crude and crass language, and a contraception reference. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Mulderig is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

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Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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