A reason to celebrate

‘Four Christmases’
Director: Seth Gordon
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek
Rating: PG-13
Globes:  Three Globes

REVIEW. Holiday films have the tendency to drive home the same moral banalities every year.
Yes, Christmas is about hope. Yes, Christmas is about generosity. And yes, yes, for the millionth time yes, Christmas is about family. Thankfully, “Four Chris-tmases” manages to avoid most of these clichés by offering a platitude of its own: “You can’t spell families without lies.”
While the film succumbs to a small slice of holiday cheesiness, it’s that wry brand of humor, celebrating the refreshingly imperfect, that makes the film genuinely amusing half of the time.

As Brad, Vince Vaughn delivers the comedy while he and Reese Witherspoon’s Kate play something akin to a fleshed-out version of the couple in the “SNL” skit, “Two A-holes,” visiting families they have shirked for years only after being trapped into doing so. Vaughn’s character here could easily be interchanged with his roles in “Swingers” or “Wedding Crashers,” but it’s a welcome similarity, considering most of the other characters in this film merely play unwitting foils to his sarcastic one-liners. 

Witherspoon, while competent, seems to have a hard time playing a jerk with heart and at times appears to be phoning it in. The hi-jinks at each household border on tedium — notably in a scene when Brad’s “hick” father (Robert Duvall) and two cage-fighting brothers (Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw) attempt to install a satellite dish and disaster predictably ensues. There are a few lost opportunities to show any universally relatable family dynamics; when the witty dialogue runs dry, hammy physical humor swoops in to take its place. Don’t expect your stockings to be blown off by “Four Christmases,” though it’s certainly not a lump of coal this holiday season.