If there’s one thing that really disappointed me about Four Christmases it is that it is not really much of a Christmas movie. Oh, sure, it is SET at Christmas, but it just as easily could have been called Four Thanksgivings or Four Easters with only minor cosmetic changes. The film’s theme, its set up and its gags could have been readily transplanted into another holiday and would have served up only a marginally different film. And really that’s the films biggest sin. When you go to Christmas movie, you’re kind of hoping it will inspire some sort of Christmas cheer – or in the case of heavy drama, tap into some of the heavier, more heartbreaking emotions of the season, even going so far to use the positive feelings as a juxtaposition against what’s going on. Either way something called Four Christmases should, you know, feel like it’s going on at Christmas.
Instead it’s just another gag filled comedy in which a very talented cast is given a mediocre script and asked to work miracles. Sadly, there is no Christmas miracle for this film.
That’s not to say that it is terrible, just terribly mediocre and utterly forgettable. The conceit is simple, two people have managed to be a couple for three years and never have met or so much as mentioned their families to one another. When they’re caught on the news trying to sneak to Tahiti for Christmas, their parents all manage to see through their deception, call and arrange for them to visit. This sets up the series of nightmares that our awkward duo have to maneuver. And that’s all well and good – dysfunctional family comedy is a staple of holiday hi-jinx.
The trouble comes when almost every major debacle at their family’s houses comes at the hands of the character’s own sudden irrational incompetence. Very little of anything that happens is actually because of their family. The families each just come across as generally, and very deliberately, unlikable. All of the antics that ensue tend to be at our heroes own hands – and very few of these ‘wild antic’ moments work. Add to this the unimaginative cliché ridden themes of each house – Redneck Christmas, Born-again Christmas and let’s not forget Hippie Love-in Christmas – and you have the makings for something incredibly pedestrian.
The film’s only saving grace is that even the smallest roles are filled with an incredibly talented cast. Jokes that might not have worked in ordinary hands become sometimes very funny in the hands of people like Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon both work well together, particularly in the in-car lovers-spat scenes we’re given between each location. But the real stand outs in the film are Jon Favreau and Katy Mixon who play Vaughn’s redneck Brother and Sister-in-law. Favreau manages to steal almost every scene he appears in just by glowering menacingly at Vaughn. Together with Mixon, they play party to one of the best sequences in the movie as they dominate at a board game. Duvall and Spacek both get a decent scene or two, but most everyone else is wasted. Tim McGraw and Dwight Yoakam both get so few lines you begin to wonder why they cast name actors at all, and the uber-talented Kristin Chenoweth is boiled down to a stereotype without a bit of sharp dialog to back her up – a stark contrast to her better known work on such well written shows as The West Wing and Pushing Daisies.
But the film finally sputters to a halt in the third act as it tries to milk one last bit of drama too much, giving us a fight and a resolution with emotions that appear just as suddenly as they disappear. And while one might argue that this is “fairly realistic” it finds itself in a film that never feels rooted in any kind of “reality” outside of a cinematic, zany one, and thus feels incredibly inauthentic, thoroughly rushed and ultimately never completely earned. The first non-documentary feature debut of Seth Gordon (who gave us last year’s King of Kong), this proves to be a very disappointing outing from a guy who showed a lot of early potential.
All that said, there are a few genuinely funny moments and as lowbrow as the comedy occasionally gets, the cast does do a fairly decent job of elevating it to a level that won’t leave you embarrassed to be seen in a theater showing it. If your family tries to drag you to it this holiday weekend, it won’t exactly be a painful experience. It just won’t be a very memorable one either. Don’t let the talent behind this fool you – this is just your run of the mill annual lame holiday film. Nothing more, nothing less.
