On November 26, 2008, Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema are set to release Four Christmases, a romantic comedy Christmas-themed film starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughan. Reese Witherspoon is an Academy Award winning actress who starred in the film Walk the Line, as well as in several other critically-acclaimed films, and she is sure to bring the right amount of charm to her character, Kate, while funnyman Vince Vaughan, known for his role in the successful movie Wedding Crashers, is sure to elicit plenty of laughs as Brad. Witherspoon and Vaughan lead a talented ensemble of actors and actresses, one that is sure to make Four Christmases an entertaining holiday movie. The film is the first feature film of director Seth Gordon, a new face on the Hollywood scene, although his documentary, The King Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, was met with critical acclaim. In fact, Gordon was brought in as the director because of Vince Vaughan’s request because Vaughan saw Gordon’s documentary and enjoyed it immensely.

Brad and Kate are a couple who gloriously revel in the fact that they are unmarried. They do not have to deal with the hassle that comes when two people get married and have to share all kinds of responsibilities like a house and children – they can just enjoy themselves and have fun like two kids. Every Christmas, instead of going home to see their families, Brad and Kate invent some kind of excuse to get out of celebrating the holiday with their chaotic families. Both Brad and Kate’s parents are divorced, and visiting each and every one of the families would involve four separate visits. Needless to say, Brad and Kate would rather get on a plane and escape to some sunny locale where they can sit by the pool and sip margaritas, toasting the fact that they once again escaped having to see their parents. Every Christmas since they first met, they have been able to indulge in this ritual, escaping all of the hassle that would come with having to visit each of their estranged parents together. After all, they not only have to contend with their parents being divorced: screaming kids, awkward conversation, and simmering resentments all come to appear during these family get-togethers, and Brad and Kate relish the fact that they can avoid these horrors.

Of course, this Christmas will not be quite so easy for Brad and Kate. With shorts and sunglasses tidily packed away, Brad and Kate are all ready for their journey to their sunny vacation hotspot when all of the sudden a fogbank rolls into the San Francisco airport and forces every outbound flight to be cancelled. Suddenly their ritual of escaping San Francisco and their feuding families is cut short, which is already bad enough, but things certainly manage to get worse when a TV camera catches Brad and Kate, making their whereabouts known to anybody watching a television in San Francisco. To make things worse, all four of their parents happen to be watching the television, and each and every one of them expects their son or daughter to be with them for Christmas. This means Brad’s father, Kate’s mother, Brad’s mother, and Kate’s father all want to see them, no escape and no excuses this year. Brad and Kate brace themselves for the whirlwind of homecomings they can expect to face.

Considering the way that both sets of parents divorced, Brad and Kate only expect the worst on their homecomings. Every individual subset of their family has all kinds of things for both Brad and Kate to be ashamed of, whether it consists of embarrassing family secrets or bizarre relatives on either side of the family. Throughout the whole experience, Brad cannot wait for it all to be over, but Kate finds herself contemplating something else: perhaps a commitment would be good for Brad and Kate to have, rather than their uncommitted relationship where either of them can come and go as they please. As the two lovebirds get to know themselves better through their respective families, they begin to appreciate each other more and to see each other in a different light, one that they had never been able to appreciate considering their troubled family lives up to that point.

With Reese Witherspoon playing Kate and Vince Vaughan playing Brad, the movie is slated for excellence. The role of Brad’s brother will be played by Jon Favreau, most famous for his roles in Rudy and Swingers and for directing Iron Man, while Brad’s father will be played by Robert Duvall, an Academy, Emmy, and Golden Globe Award winning actor that has appeared in films such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Godfather. Academy Award winning actor Jon Voight plays Kate’s dad, while Academy Award winning actress Mary Steenburgen plays Kate’s Mother. Rounding out the esteemed members of Hollywood that are appearing in Four Christmases is the Academy Award winning actress Sissy Spacek. The star-studded cast with revered actors spanning several generations makes for a very talented backdrop for the charming story, and if director Seth Gordon’s work on The King Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is any indication, the film is sure to be a hit with viewers.

The world premiere of Four Christmases will take place on November 20, a Thursday. Red carpet arrivals will take place in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater while film talent and celebrity attendees will follow shortly. There are trailers and TV spots of the movie up all over the internet, so if you would like to get a taste of the movie before it comes out in theaters, you need only to type the title of the movie into a search engine or check it out on YouTube. Much of the buzz around the movie results from the interesting pairing of Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughan as an on-screen couple, as the two do not seem to superficially have as much chemistry as one would imagine necessary for roles like these. If the script makes their chemistry believable, though, the movie will be a delightful story playing to Vince Vaughan’s comedic strengths and Reese Witherspoon’s acting talents. The plethora of stars involved in the making of the movie, including cameos by country singers Tim McGraw and Dwight Yoakam, makes it a must-see if only for the fun of seeing some of the entertainment industry’s most colorful characters on-screen together.

Due to the strike by the Writers Guild of America, no changes could be made to the script after production began in December 2007 – whether that adversely affected the movie or not will have to be decided once the movie is released to the general public. Even if it did, the acting talents of the star-studded cast, the charming plot, and the feel-good nature of holiday-themed films in general will most likely propel Four Christmases to success. For many families, gathering to watch a delightful holiday-themed film is one of the highlights of the whole season, and Four Christmases, with its all-too-true take on the holiday season in America may be just what families want to see today. Four Christmases will be released in theaters on November 26, 2008.