By: JC · December 3, 2008

I normally don’t review movies because, frankly, I’m a troglodyte who barely can comprehend the themes in video games. However, when a movie comes along that a) evokes such an emotional reaction and b) has no chance of being reviewed here, I step up to the plate. Just as a word of warning, this is going to be spoiler heavy so if you don’t want to be ruined, then I suggest that you see the movie…Duvall was the murderer!

In short, Four Christmases could be one of the worst Christmas movies ever released (and that includes the one where my father somehow convinced his friends at TriStar to release a film based on his drunken Christmas Eve exploits, which became Santa Clause the Movie). Typically, Christmas movies revolve around themes of charity, family and friendship (the secular Spirit of Christmas). Four Christmases contains none of these themes and instead is a set of laughable sight gags with a resolution so disheartening you wish it’d be New Year’s already. In fact, part of me believes that the original concept didn’t include Christmas at all and someone in the studio decided that it was a better package for the film.

The film centers on Brad (Vince Vaughn), a highly successful San Francisco attorney and his girlfriend Kate (Reese Witherspoon), who are shown to be the world’s most healthy couple. They love spending time together whether it be role-playing at a bar, playing board games, taking ballroom dance classes just for the fun of it or just communicating with each other. And as healthy as they are, marriage and kids are out of the question. As they explain to a few engaged couples, marriage is just a prison and something they aren’t interested in. The only negative in their apparently splendid lives is that both Brad and Kate have gone to great lengths in avoiding their respective families for the past three Christmases. Each year, the two lie to their parents (both of whom are divorced) saying they are doing charity work, while in reality travel to exotic locals for the holidays. However, as Brad and Kate arrive at the airport for this year’s trip to Fiji, fog causes their flight to be delayed until the next day. To add further injury, Brad and Kate, while arguing with the ticket counter guy, included with mocking of the airline’s offer of a suite at the Radisson, are shown on tv, thus alerting their families the two will be available to visit that afternoon.

The message for the first act is simple, Brad and Kate are yuppie douchebags, but yuppie douchebags who “get” each other. But once Brad and Kate decide that they have to visit each parent (thus the title Four Christmases), the movie’s Christmas theme (if it was ever intended) unravels.

With each visit to a parent’s house (each parent, played by an Oscar winner) causes some stress to the respective child. Brad’s father and brothers emasculate him, Kate’s mother makes her feel like the fat child she once was, Brad’s mother is married to his former best friend and Kate’s father, played by Jon Voight, well as many aspects of the movie, it’s never explained why Kate hates going to her father’s house. Furthermore, each visit causes tension between Brad and Kate, as Kate wonders if this lifestyle of no marriage, no kids is truly for her.

Finally after this day of hectic visits, after telling Brad that she may want kids, Brad (in classic Rom-Com fashion) bolts, leaving Kate to the wise reassuring words of the aforementioned Voigt. Brad, visiting his father, somehow (god forbid they show what causes Brad to have a change of heart), returns to Kate, for a mind-bogglingly distasteful yuppie child rationalization, including tax write-offs. In the prologue, Brad and Kate have a child, revealing to the nurse they haven’t told their family that Kate was pregnant. The End. Or better yet, fuck you.

The odd part is that the rest of the movie isn’t all that terrible. The Oscar winners, while not at top-spped, provide sufficient performances. Duvall basically plays himself, the grizzled man’s man. Steenburgen is fine as Kate’s mother. Spacek, exceeds with a stereotypical cradle robber role and Voight, while basically a cameo, is adequate. Additionally, Kristen Chenoweth and Jon Favreau as Kate and Brad’s sister and brother respectively, probably give the best performances of the film. Meanwhile Tim McGraw, who demonstrated with his recent SNL performance that he is to comedy as my next door neighbor is to comedy, doesn’t ruin the movie.

And that is what is so frustrating about this movie. While the sight gags where funny, the family was completely unnecessary. In the end, nothing changes. Brad and Kate are still a yuppie couple, who can’t communicate with their families. What kind of Christmas movie is that? No one is better off and the audience is left wondering why they cared about any of these people in the first place. If the movie were called Two Yuppies Decide to Have a Child, I would have expected this, but for a Christmas movie, Four Christmases is a lump of coal in the bottom of the popcorn bag.