FOUR CHRISTMASES *½

Seth Gordon directed this comedy/romance featuring: Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, Mary Steenburgen, Jon Voight, Sissy Spacek. Rated PG-13 for some sexual humor and language. The running time is one hour and twenty-two minutes.

When an upscale, happily unmarried San Francisco couple (Vaughn and Witherspoon) must cancel their exotic holiday vacation plans, they trudge to not one, not two, but four relative-choked festivities, increasingly mortified to find childhood fears raised, adolescent wounds reopened... and their very future together uncertain. Along the way we meet all four divorced parents (his: Duvall and Spacek, hers: Voight and Steenburgen).

This has been sold as a holiday comedy. They lied, it isn't funny! It's basically four short vignettes that make you wonder how the couple has avoided major psychiatric problems, although you do understand why they've avoided going home for the holidays during their relationship. The one storyline that is mildly amusing will probably offend a portion of the audience during this season (the nativity story at a new age church). There's nothing in this film that won't be just as unimpressive on your TV as it is in a theatre—so, I'd wait for the DVD.