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Four Christmases
EMAILPRINTNew Line Cinema (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 27 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 26 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by:
Matt R. Allen
Caleb Wilson
Jon Lucas
Scott Moore
Directed by: Seth Gordon
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 26, 2008
DVD: November 24, 2009
Running Time: 82 minutes, Color
Origin: USA | Germany
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some sexual humor and language
Starring Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Jon Favreau, Mary Steenburgen, Dwight Yoakam, Tim McGraw, Kristin Chenoweth, Jon Voight, and Sissy Spacek
No one enjoys the holidays more than Brad and Kate. Every December 25th, this happily unmarried, upscale San Francisco couple embark on a holiday tradition they have shared every year since they met—ditching their crazy families for a relaxing, fun-filled vacation in some sunny exotic locale. But not this year. Shorts and sunglasses packed, Brad and Kate are trapped at the San Francisco airport by a fogbank that cancels every outbound flight. Worse yet, they are caught on camera by a local news crew, revealing their whereabouts to the whole city…and to their families. With no escape and no excuses, they are now expected home by Brad’s father. And Kate’s mother. And Brad’s mother. And Kate’s father. Four Christmases in one day. (New Line Cinema)
Also On Metacritic
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Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Four Christmases works because of some genuinely funny setups, a pace that never dwells on one gag (or even one family) too long and a careful mix of slapstick and bawdy humor. But mostly, the film works because of the astonishing acting talent the filmmakers brought together to make it.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Vaughn delivers every line with his usual deadpan glibness, which suits the part. But I smiled as I watched the big-bellied, multi-chinned actor connecting with the porcelain, model-thin Witherspoon.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
Refreshingly tart and lean, forgoing the usual schmaltz and syrup.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Gordon's best not-so-secret weapons, though, are his two stars: Vaughn and Witherspoon are an inspired pairing, not least because they're such a mismatched set of salt-and-pepper shakers.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
It's pleasantly funny, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, from start to finish, even when it's staging broad, easy gags about baby barf and fat kids.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Dan Zak
The only laughs come from Vaughn, a master of ingratiation. Witherspoon is no Roz Russell or Lucille Ball. But she fills space nicely.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
This is marginally better than most, with a few offbeat comic ideas, a reliably droll performance from Vaughn, and, as the parents, four watchable old troupers in search of a fat paycheck.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Four Christmases is waste of time and a disappointment, but it's also relatively painless.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The film has its funny moments, but they are too few to make the holiday excursion worthwhile.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Cammila Albertson
It's well acted and it's entertaining -- and who can resist a movie where Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau are brothers, and Robert Duvall is their dad?
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
We got two gold-record singers and they don't sing? So? We got five Oscar-winning actors, and they don't need to act much.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Neither clever nor heartwarming, Four Christmases is the coal in the stocking of holiday movies.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The result is two bad movies in one: a gimmicky romantic comedy, and one of those seasonal headaches that submits loud family dysfunction as a vehicle for Christmas cheer.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Oddly misanthropic, occasionally amusing but thoroughly cheerless holiday attraction that is in no way a family film.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Like the last gift buried under singing Billy Bass fish, dancing Coke cans, joke books and mounds of wrapping paper, there's a glimmer of fun in Four Christmases that almost gets vacuumed up with the tinsel.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Rick Kisonak
To put it in the best light possible, I recommend thinking of Four Christmases not so much as a really short movie but as a very special holiday episode of a sitcom.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A generic oven-stuffer that wants to be a stocking-stuffer, is a turkey, despite the foil wrapping and some artfully deployed tinsel.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Four Christmases is essentially "Meet the Parents" quadrupled.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Bad enough to create one of the most joyless Christmas movies ever, but then to go for an unearned feel-good ending adds insult to injury.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Steve Davis
This year's entry in this lowly subgenre is Four Christmases, a D-list comedy with A-list actors.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
Alas, there's scarcely a moment of ingenuity or surprise in this tale of the supremely smug, unmarried-but-made-for-each-other Brad and Kate.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
This is a movie of excesses that doesn't know when to settle down. It aims to be a slapstick comedy, a romantic comedy and a plain old romance but falls short of each goal.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Four Christmases is sour to the point of curdling, a satirical look at the holidays a la "Bad Santa" that does exactly what that film avoided: come off as both off-puttingly misanthropic and gloppily sentimental.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
As Vaughn's therapist mother, Sissy Spacek comes off best. But she's a rare bird of whom it truly can be said: She's always good. No matter how grim the material.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
The movie boasts five Oscar winners. That figure exceeds by five the number of times I laughed at this cheap collection of icky jokes.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
The movie doesn't offer a single surprise within its scant 82 minutes, which feel like at least twice that.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 4.5 (out of 10) based on 26 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Ian A. gave it an8:
I went with caution as most of the critics didn't really care for this movie but I have to say I thought it was really enjoyable. I thought Vaughn and Witherspoon were terrific together and I actually laughed out loud several times. It didn't deteriorate into the syrupy feel good crap either ... thank goodness. I honestly don't see why it received such bad reviews.
Chris P. gave it a2:
If watching some nice guy who hasn't really done anything wrong, get the crap beaten out of him by his brothers in his dad's living room while his dad verbally abuses him strikes you as somehow funny, then you might enjoy this movie. I didn't find it funny, and sometimes found it a little upsetting, to be honest. The basic joke in most of the family scenes is: families push your boundaries in inappropriate ways, causing embarrassment. Only, that's not intrinsically funny, it has to be made funny by some kind of wit or twist or surprise, which as far as I can tell is lacking here. The main characters are urban yuppies who don't want to get married or have kids, and maybe you're supposed to hate them, hate them with such a passion that seeing them turned into emotional (and sometimes physical) punching bags is really enjoyable for you, and maybe you're supposed to believe that the urge to marry and have kids is so natural that it will overcome people eventually if they're just exposed to other people's families for a day. Or maybe it's just that the script was put together by four credited writers, and who knows how many uncredited ones, and it just really didn't come together. But if you want to watch comedy about family over the Christmas break, you're better off renting the first two seasons of Arrested Development. Infinitely so.
Viki gave it a2:
Vince Vaugh and Reese Witherspoon makes the worst couple ever on screen, worse than 'The Breakup'. This movie is a typical xmas genre with spills and kills you'd expect from the trying to survive actor Vince Vaugh. Rent a movie at home.
Collin J. gave it a6:
Not bad, for a Christmas movie. the only thing keeping me from giving it a higher rating is the fact that this movie is a little too predicable.
Tank J. gave it a2:
The movie seems unfinished...almost like the edited it to get it under 90 minutes. Anyway, very few funny moments. This movie is horrible.
Chad S. gave it a4:
Blink and you may miss it; it being the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots in Brad's childhood room. Red robot. Blue robot. Red state. Blue state. Brad(Vince Vaughn) and Kate(Reese Witherspoon) grew up rooting for the red robot, but now they're backing the blue robot, ever since they left home to escape horrific childhoods that made them feel small. "Four Christmases" is a game of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, which disappointingly, ends in a muddling draw. At the outset, the blue robot brings it; he throws a few body blows to conservative ideology(Brad's brothers are named Denver and Dallas: two notably red state cities), knocking family values and the church into submission. But then, those twin pillars of Republican mind control receives its smelling salts by the red robot's trainer and rallies to rope-a-dope the blue robot. So the sparring match goes the distance, so it goes to the judges' decision. It's a draw. In Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love", Barry(Adam Sandler) survives a childhood marred by constant verbal(and perhaps, physical) abuse from his siblings, just like the Liberal Elitist in "Four Christmases", who was formerly known as Orlando. While the Sandler-Is-A-Serious-Actor vehicle never delves into the Emily Watson character's past, the audience can gauge that her childhood wasn't a particularly rosy one either, such was Kate's formative years, in which the fairer Liberal Elitist suffered the same low self-esteem issues at the hands of her family. Without realizing it, because they kept their "hick" pasts a secret, Brad and Kate are a perfect match. A "Punch-Drunk Love"-like storyline could have materialized, but it doesn't, because their trip to Fiji is thwared by fog(incidentally, Hawaii, the setting for Barry and Lena's vacation, gets a mention). In its place, echoes of Paul Schrader's "Affliction"(the final conversation between father(James Coburn) and son(Nick Nolte)) can be discerned as Brad talks to his hard-ass father(Robert Duvall) late in the film. "Four Christmases" is most convincing when the blue robot hits below the belt; then out of the blue, Kate's family suddenly becomes warmer and more nurturing at a new venue(her father's house), not soon after Kate's first confrontation with her sister(Kristen Chenowith) and mother(Mary Steenburgen), which ably explains why she hadn't returned home in years.
Mitch A. gave it a10:
Great holiday film. Vaughn and Witherspoon are a delightful comedic duo to say the least. Hilarious!
