Four Christmases

Once upon a time there was a happy young couple who adored each other. The man was loving and attentive to the woman. She was loving and attentive back. They had a perfect life, with tenderness and romance. Both expressed a desire not to get married, nor to have children.

But...we know this is a lie. We know that no such man exists. All real men are grown up infants who avoid responsibility like the plague. Moreover, all real women want to have babies. They are programmed to have babies. There is no other alternative. It is only a matter of time before these realities overtake the perfectly happy couple.

And they do, over the course of twenty-four hours in Christmas-from-hell. Subjected to worst forms of American family dysfunction, they revert to their "true" natures. Despite being around a collection of gawdawful siblings, uniformly sadistic brats and whining infants who are capable only of volcanic vomiting, the woman's biological nature emerges and she becomes immediately Miss-I-Wanna-Get-Married-And-Have-A-Baby. Predictably, the man responds by becoming his true infantile self. She blackmails him: it's baby or nothing, boy. Predictably, being the infantile scum he is, he flees.

Thankfully Jon Voigt, the woman's father, is a wise man who regrets the time he didn't spend with his kids. This regret allows him to create a perfect household and a perfect Christmas amidst a sea of chaos. Everything is good again for the young woman like magic. The woman's sister gives her a precious piece of advice: "If your parents are divorced, then having kids will lead them to getting back together, because becoming grandparents will make them love each again."

Meanwhile the man, realizing how much he truly hates his father, and that he won't get any tail as good as the young woman, accepts her blackmail and immediately "grows up" with the stipulation that they aren't going to rush this responsibility thing.

Everyone lives miserably ever after. America spews out another generation of idiots. New Line Cinema rakes in a lot of bucks on a Christmas movie that had nothing really to do about Christmas.

Probably God was behind it all, because the young couple had to dress up as Jesus and Mary along the way in a Christmas pageant thrown by a crazy evangelical cult in which people cheer for Joseph like a professional wrestler. Or the fog of San Francisco Bay did it. Yes, the fog was behind it all, for the fog is the life force in action.

The only good things about this movie: the first five minutes features a "pickup" scene in a bar providing a roller coaster ride that set a direction that the movie was utterly incapable of following. Too bad. It supplied a tidy little dissertation on what is wrong (or right) with American mating habits, and specifically why women like "bad boys" and why men don't understand that (except the bad boys, who get all the girls who look like Reese Witherspoon). The other good thing is the choice of casting Kristin Chenoweth as Reese Witherspoon's older sister. Of course! Brilliant!

Saw Four Christmases at the AMC in Tyngsboro, Mass, a multiplex that is dark with lots of day-glo colors. Reminds me of a video arcade. I was the sole audience member in a five hundred person auditorium. That's the way to go, baby!