Four Christmases and Changeling

3:01pm Wednesday 26th November 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Rumours of an on-set feud between lead stars Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn hardly echo the tidings of comfort and joy espoused by Seth Gordon’s romantic comedy Four Christmases. "We've just got to get through these four Christmases as quickly and painlessly as possible,” grimaces Witherspoon's plucky heroine as she stares down the barrel of back-to-back celebrations with her divorced parents and the in-laws. By the end of the first act, we realise with mounting horror that director Gordon and his four screenwriters have no intention of granting her (and therefore us) that wish.

Instead, the blissfully happy couple suffers a series of outrageous mishaps, which tests their relationship to breaking point, including a trawl through the childhood photograph albums, a bruising tug of war with a satellite dish and a rumble in a bouncy castle.

Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn plaster on their fake smiles but don’t convince for a second as a blissfully happy couple.

When the cracks appear, there’s almost a sense of relief that these two mismatched souls will go their separate ways. Of course, the screenwriters have other ideas, determined that this dull, festive ding-dong ends merrily on a high, replete with a mawkish coda. Four Christmases is a tinsel-strewn re-tread of Meet The Parents, which fails to make us care about Brad and Kate before throwing them into the lion’s dens of their family homes.

Angelina Jolie makes a strong bid for an Oscar nomination with her tour de force portrayal of a crusading mother in Clint Eastwood’s harrowing drama Changling. Based on shocking true events from the Los Angeles police files, adapted for the screen by J. Michael Straczynski, the film is a cautionary tale about the abuse of power and the extraordinary influence of one individual on a corrupt system. Eastwood underscores Tom Stern’s flawless cinematography with his own mournful orchestrations to evoke the twilight years of the 1920s, an era of post-war prosperity when families could leave their doors open at night.

Against this impressively recreated canvas of restrictive fashions and vintage cars, single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) raises her nine-year-old son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) by working as a supervisor at the city’s telephone exchange. One weekend, Christine is unexpectedly called into work and when she returns home, Walter has disappeared without trace.

After months of fearing the worst, Captain J.J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) contacts the mother with incredible news: Walter has been found safe and well in a neighbouring state and is on his way home. Overcome with joy, Christine races to the rail station only to find the boy (Devon Conti) who claims to be Walter is an impostor. With the press swarming and Captain Jones desperate for a happy ending, the mother is forced against her will to take in the child as if he were her son. At first Christine agrees but she eventually buckles and threatens to expose the lie.