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Movie review: “Four Christmases”
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
According to the popular song, “there’s no place like home for the holidays,” Brad and Kate would beg to differ: Fiji is more like it this year. Other years it’s been Bali, Costa Rica, Hawaii. Why?
Well, that’s what “Four Christmases,” the latest prodigal children-make-peace-with-family yuletide comedy is all about. For years, phone calls have been the extent to which Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) have been willing to let the divorced parents connect at Christmas (“we’re going to Burma to do charity work”) with the unmarried couple’s comfortable lives in San Francisco.
This December 25th, however, they’re going to be forced to face what has made them no-shows in the lives of their mothers and fathers and assorted relatives. Caught on TV news camera in their island getaway gear at the airline counter of the fogged-in, flights-canceled airport, Brad and Kate answer curious calls from Mom and Dad and reluctantly agree to change their plans.
From lovey-dovey, Brad and Kate go to biting each other’s head off in the car, anticipating the misery to come as they contemplate close proximity to their families’ embarrassing personalities and lifestyles. “Promise we’ll still have each other,” Kate implores Brad; unaware that after their folks get through with them, they may be as close to losing each other as they’ve ever come.
Why? Because their willing absence has made them fair game for family members disappointed in or resentful of what they perceive as the couple’s sense of superiority. Brad and Kate say they aren’t willing to mess up a good thing by getting married. They say they’re not interested in having children. They think they know each other.
They believe they have a more meaningful, normal life than: a combine-driving father (Robert Duvall) who calls his ex-wife a street walker; than grown men (Jon Favreau; Tim McGraw) who think the best way to show affection to their brother is to treat him like an opponent in a cage fight; than a mother (Sissy Spacek) who’s unashamedly snuggling with Brad’s best friend; than a sister (Kristen Chenowith) who is never happier than when she’s pregnant; than a mother (Mary Steenburgen) who has gotten that old-time religion and the pastor (Dwight Yoakam) who’s preaching it; than a father (Jon Voight) who finally learned after several divorces that “nothing beats being honest about who you are and what you need.”
But after spending some time with the people who knew them when Brad was called Orlando (named after the city in which he was conceived) and Kate went to a fat camp, one of them is going to realize that it’s not such a good thing if you believe that commitment and sharing your life with a child is going to mess up a good thing like love and never wanting to be without each other.
Good-naturedly vulgar and juvenile in spots, with the gags and pranks flying hot and heavy, the story makes some sweet points about the importance of family. Vaughn is at his zany best and Witherspoon makes a lovely, witty second banana. A New Line release, rated PG-13 for sexual humor and language.
