Despite me not exactly agreeing with the premise of the film (we plan on taking a nice vacation next Christmas, someplace warm and fun), Four Christmases (2008) was a fun movie.
Starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as Brad and Kate, a couple who wants to just enjoy life, unencumbered by familial obligations, especially during the holidays. Every year they cancel on their families and go someplace fun...this year it is Fiji, until they get fogged in, and are caught by a TV news crew reporting on flight cancellations. Their families immediately call them and tell them to come over.
And there are not just two families, because both sets of parents are split up, so Brad and Kate set off to visit all four. Robert Duvall plays Brad's dad, in a tough as nails house, where anyone who is not rough and tumble is considered weak. And Sissy Spacek as Brad's mom, who is holistic and and earthy and now living with Brad's former best friend as her new lover.
All the families are eccentric in one way or another. But the movie is trying to send a typically sappy message of the importance of family during the holidays. And this is where it is weakest. Because in many ways, I would have rather Brad and Kate got to Fiji...that could have been just as fun a movie. Instead, the movie falls back on cliches of family Christmas time, and it just doesn't feel right with as eccentric as these families are.
You know, sometimes you stay away from your family for a good reason. I'm just saying.
Four Christmases is fun...but it is not any more than that. It is not a holiday classic nor does it bear much consideration as it is so cliche ridden. Even if Brad and Kate did have to visit their families, I think it would have been a better movie if they realized going to Fiji was the better idea.
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