"Four Christmases" doesn't multiply holiday cheer

One Christmas gathering can be trying enough for some people, much less four ...so they won't envy Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon.
They play a couple forced to visit all the relatives one holiday in "Four Christmases," which has the same problem as many of the other seasonal movies of recent years. They try to be funny, usually in a snarky way, then make a last-ditch attempt to be sincere as they approach the finish line. And it just doesn't ring true.
The main characters have been successful, year after year, at getting out of the family tour by claiming to go overseas to do volunteer work at the holidays -- when they've actually skipped off to Fiji to avoid the familial stress. This time, they're trapped at home by fog, which becomes widely known when they're randomly picked to be interviewed on television about their plight. Having been busted so publicly, they feel they must make the rounds of all the families of their divorced parents.
Each stop is a real chore for them, and all the vignettes demonstrate why they would want to get as far away from their relatives as possible at holiday time. The tales do make for an extremely solid supporting cast that includes Witherspoon's fellow Oscar winners Robert Duvall, Jon Voight and Mary Steenburgen, as well as the always-delightful Kristin Chenoweth. She and Witherspoon play sisters, and given their well-matched energy and their reasonable resemblance, someone in the casting department was really on the ball.
"Four Christmases" has a few chuckles along the way, and Witherspoon does her best to match Vaughn's humor, a tough task since his style is so uniquely his. Mainly, the film lacks the most essential element of such a story -- true heart -- so here's hoping Hollywood remembers to add that to the holiday-movie recipe next time. Gee, that used to seem so easy (and necessary) once upon a time.
By- Jay Bobbin