What Happens When Too Much Christmas Spirit Is Too Much

In Four Christmases, Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon play Brad and Kate, a happily unmarried San Francisco couple planning on avoiding family gatherings by pretending to be on their way to Burma to inoculate babies.

The only problem is Brad and Kate get fogged in on Christmas morning, and must visit with his mean ol’ snake dad (Robert Duvall), her cougar-ish mom (Mary Steenburgen), his free-spirited mom (Sissy Spacek), and her atoning dad (Jon Voight) all on the same day.

You’d think hilarity would ensue, but you’d think wrong.

Four Christmases starts out strong, with a premise that’s just ripe for laughter. But it rather quickly loses steam, like a brand new locomotive train you get on Christmas morning that still has its generic, one-go batteries.

Vaughn and Witherspoon have good chemistry, and it’s a gas to see his tallness play opposite her shortness. It’s sweet, but it’s not enough, though.

Theirs is a couple that’s not bogged down by convention yet – they keep it spicy by role playing at bars and going on tropical vacations instead of charitable trips as the aforementioned. Both actors play this up to great effect, natch.

But the movie doesn’t quite work because it desperately wants to be a comedy with some drama instead of a comedy with real gravitas (by the end of the day, one half of Brate will want to change their dynamic…and the other doesn’t).

It’s a real shame then that Four Christmases doesn’t really get us into the spirit of the season. In fact, it kind of turned me off the holiday a little.

My Rating **

Photo: EW.com.