Review of Four Christmases

Personally, I thought Four Christmases was a pretty hilarious holiday movie. I could identify with many of the underlying themes, and so found it enjoyable.

This is primarily because it isn't saccharine-sweet and Christmassy, and does not feature happy, perfect families, a bunch of cute kids wearing santa hats and/or worse, talking puppies, kittens or other cutesy animals.

Nope, this is a definitely a grownups' Christmas movie, liberally sprinkled with all the complications of a grownup Christmas!

Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) play a co-habiting couple who live for each other and for the moment (and not necessarily in that order either). Their lives are fast-paced, glamorous, full of exciting things to do, people to meet and places to travel to. Minus any family obligations or responsibilities whatsoever, there's plenty of time to pursue totally selfish and indulgent pursuits. And boy, are they loving it!

It's Christmas time (yeah, well you guessed that from the title of the movie didn't you) and we discover, as they talk to friends at a party, that they're going away for Christmas to Fiji - just the two of them, fun in the sun while everyone else is stuck having to get up close and personal with their godawful relatives. It's not that Brad and Kate have no family; turns out, both of them have parents alive and living in San Francisco, but have just conveniently (and creatively!) chosen to lie their way out of being with them at Christmas!

Owing to a cruel twist of fate however (as twists of fate can only be!), their plans are majorly derailed, and they end up being re-routed not to Fiji, but to very homes of the very parents they were trying to avoid, for Christmas.

And the Four Christmases begin!

Before 5 minutes has gone by we see exactly WHY they were trying to escape Christmas with their folks. Both sets of parents and some of the siblings are dysfunctional (and, in Brad's case, Neanderthal!) and there are 4, not 2, houses to go to because both sets of parents are divorced and have set up individual homes.

A series of hilarious and semi-hilarious antics proceed to ensue at all the houses concerned, which provides for good entertainment. Vince Vaughn carries his lines and scenes especially well in the comic parts of the movie.

Quite suddenly (and here's where the funny bits kind of start to lose their funnyness) Kate starts to morph from Swinging Single to Melting Mommy. It's not clear why this happens - the kids in the movie are far from inspirational as her niece, Brad's nephews and all the other kids in the movie are portrayed as the rudest and most unpleasant brats imaginable; but suddenly there she is, all gooey and nesty, holding a (negative) pregnancy test in her hand. (How this ends up in her niece's mouth, really has to be seen to be believed!)

From then Kate's character becomes all whiney and sulky and unfunny (while Brad reaches new heights in discovering onstage personae as Joseph in the Nativity Play) and at the end of the day, when they talk in the car, they realise that something has happened to change Kate while Brad remains exactly the same person he was at the beginning of the movie.

As they talk, it transpires that Kate is now willing to exchange her perfect life for a life of unknowns - marriage, pregnancy, kids and all the things she was afraid of. Brad wants none of those things and says so. In true cliché fashion, they break up when they realise their paths are no longer congruent, only to end up back together after one (yes, just one) night away from each other, only this time with BRAD now equally nesty and gooey. And life ends happily ever after with the marriage, the kid, the house, the white picket fence, yada yada yada.

In real life, this scenario would have (and usually does) pan out differently. For starters, when one person starts to change and start to want different things, it usually signals the end of the relationship. The real-life Brad would have turned into an eternal bachelor, dating younger and younger girls has get gets older, and getting out just before the word "commitment" comes up. The real-life Kate would have started dating immediately, this time looking for the marrying kind of man, and tied the knot within the year.

All couples know that in real life, it certainly takes more than a few glasses of wine and one night alone under the Christmas tree to make a person change their life path. So the way I see it, the takeaway from this movie is, "Folks, don't try this at home...!"