Dir. Seth Gordon, US, 2008, 82 mins
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau
Review by Joyce Dundas
Christmas is the family event, or so we are told. We moan about the commitment to scoff turkey and brussel sprouts, but we usually enjoy the whole thing. Sometimes, though, those family issues can get in the way and it all goes a bit bauble shaped. If you've ever had a Christmas family crisis, then this film will strike a chord.
Perfect 80s-style Yuppie couple, Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Witherspoon), find themselves fogbound at San Francisco airport as their getaway from the family falls apart. A random interview on live TV means they are sussed by their families and the mobile phones start ringing with dinner invitations. Their plans to avoid their extended family are blown and they now have to spend a Christmas with all of their divorced parents. And that's where the comedy should start ... unfortunately it doesn’t really.
In fact, it starts to become a bit uncomfortable. There is a truly embarrassing collection of scenes when Brad visits his white-trash father (Duvall) and brothers, all motor oil and close-cropped hair. We are made very aware of why he resists coming home and the slapstick comedy falls flat.
It does get better when Kate visits her reborn Christian mother, Mary Steenburgen. There is the obligatory ‘Let's show the new boyfriend pics of Kate as a kid and tell him some really awkward stories about her,’ scene. However, this Christmas visit does contain one of the truly funny scenes in the movie: a bouncy castle-load of overbearing, bullying kids get their comeuppance when Kate goes postal on them, and ends it with a brilliant payoff line.
The third Christmas with Spacek as Brad's mum and her toyboy lover is another standout setpiece. When the young beau asks Brad to just be his friend the answer is extremely funny.
There are sniggers rather than belly laughs, but it is not nearly as hilarious as it should be, and for those of you expecting Meet the Fockers, it just will not deliver. Just adding in some Oscar-winning actors as the parents does not make for the impact that film had.
Vaughn does his usual two-dimensional schtick, with his passive/aggressive comebacks to an airline employee or hints at his barely-hidden immaturity. Witherspoon plays the uptight career woman (though we are never told what she does for a living), a grown-up version of Tracy Flick from Election, very well.
There is growth for both characters by the end of the final Christmas, but they are so sketchily drawn and such stereotypes at the beginning that this growth fails to move you at all. There is also very little chemistry between the two leads.
At 82 minutes, you have to feel that the filmmakers were disappointed with the finished product and cut it right back to the bare minimum. It really could have done with more fleshing out characterwise.
The one character who does seem fully-rounded is Kate's sister Courtney played by the wonderful Kristin Chenoweth, most-recently seen in Pushing Daisies. Chenoweth gives Courtney a huge likeability and depth that is a gift to the barely-written script.
It is also probably not a good idea to think too much about how these two people could drive all around the environs of San Francisco on Christmas day visiting areas from desert to suburbs without much trouble. One of those small plot issues that niggles.
The film is a minor diversion rather than a good night out, though it might make you feel better about those disastrous family Christmases of the past.
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