Summary
It took four writers to bang out Four Christmases' high-concept plot, which centers on the three-years-strong unmarried union of lovey-dovey yuppies Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon), both blissfully cohabitating in one of San Francisco's swankiest apartments. Because the self-absorbed pair can't stand their divorced parents-they're afraid that they might tum out just like them-Brad and Kate spend the holidays vacationing at faraway locales, white concocting wild excuses for their absence (like they're inoculating babies in Burma) instead of fessing up to scuba dives in Fiji. "You can't spell families without 'lies,'" Brad rationalizes, a phrase that becomes repeated throughout as a mantra in the script by Matt R. Allen, Caleb Wilson, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore.
The script offers unlikely comic setups instead of anything that resembles character development, evident from the get-go when a plot contrivance shows Kate and Brad getting their kicks with rote-playing sex games. (Although this is Vaughn's second holiday-themed movie in two years, parents should realize that Four Christmases isn't remotely as family-friendly as Fred Claus.) The yuletide vignettes also serve as an excuse to both unlock unlikely family secrets, such as Kate's fear of inflatable playhouses (called "jump-jumps" in this opus), as well as putting our likable leads into ridiculous situations, particularly during Pastor [Phil]'s Christmas pageant for his congregation, with Brad and Kate dragooned to portray Joseph and [Mary Steenburgen], at which point I started yelling, "Mistletoe!" The movie's thematic thrust, so to speak, is that even though Brad and Kate know so little about each other's past, because it is the holidays, it's OK to forgive, forget and, ultimately, boink.See the full content of this document
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Four Christmases
Four Christmases. (New Line/Warner Bros,; 88 minutes; PG-13; 2008). Moviegoers in a festive, what-the-hell, I'll-see-anything mood helped anoint this tacky yuletide farce to the top of the Thanksgiving box-office heap. Too bad this blah knockoff on in-law like Meet the Pa...
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