Four Christmases (2008)
I just watched Four Christmases for the first time. Here are five things I would’ve rather done:
-Picked up dog poop in my backyard.
-Cleaned out the hair and gunk out of my vacuum cleaner.
-Jogged outside in snowy weather in my swim trunks.
-Spend an hour in a locked room with ten NFL offensive lineman eating nothing but boiled cabbage.
-Watched almost anything else.
Four Christmases was the worst Christmas movie I have ever seen, and its up there with one of the shittiest movies I’ve ever seen. If this is on your holiday movie rotation, you must venture out and find other fare. Even in the corny, saccharin-sweet world of Christmas movies, there are Citizen Kane-like options aside from this abomination of a movie.
Let me be clear. The film was poorly made. The directions, the script, the execution. Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn are the stars, and I’m pretty sure Vince Vaughn improvised all of his lines. They felt like they were from other movies. Reese is an old pro and trying to make lemonade out of piss-poor romantic comedies and she is the best thing in this garbage. I hope she was paid well.
The premise: Two obnoxious unmarried assholes are in a relationship that doesn’t exist on Earth. They have been ditching their families at the holidays to go to tropical vacations and this year they are grounded at the airport for one day.
One day. They have to wait one day for another flight. That’s it.
They get caught on TV in a suspiciously arranged local news story about holiday travelers, so they concede that they have to see all four sets of parents from their divorced families that day. Hilarity ensues. At least it would if this movie wasn’t as painfully unfunny as archived war footage from World War I.
They see their kooky families and somehow, they are all waiting for them to open gifts. I feel like they cover 200 miles in the Bay area in a single day, driving and discovering dumb shit about each other. The single day, which I’m guessing is Christmas day itself?
The Christmas experience is meant to soften our jaded couple into accepting that family and responsibility can also be part of a full life along with their sexy single stuff. I actually kind of like that premise. Sounds fit for a holiday movie. I think Reese is in that movie. Everyone else is waiting for the next Hollywood producer note-driven joke.
A buff Jon Favreau as Vaughn’s brother made me giggle with some scripted lines, so that was a highlight. My favorite part was when I remembered I could skip ahead on HBO Max and make this 90-minute movie into 60 minutes or so.
This movie hits all of the Christmas criteria. Just like the Hallmark Channel’s cavalcade of fluff movies that get rolled out every December. Christmas, family, some gifts, a little church, a little romance. All that. So, it is a Christmas movie, for sure. Just don’t watch it. Find another Reese movie or another Christmas movie. This one is enough to make you hate Vince Vaughn, movies, and Christmas itself. Just like the people who made it, Four Christmases should not be enjoyed by anyone.