Stars: Reese Witherspoon, Vince Vaughn, Robert Duvall, Jon Favreau, Mary Steenburgen, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight
Running time: 88 mins
Rating: Two stars

FACED with having to celebrate Christmas four times in a day with divorced parents and their families, Kate and Brad fix on “mistletoe” as the word to say when they can’t stand it any more and want to leave.

It’s their equivalent of saying “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here” on that TV show. I found myself shouting out “mistletoe” early in the proceedings. Four Christmases is at least three too many. Even a brief 88 minute running time does nothing to mitigate the awfulness of the experience.

Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) have been together three years and would do anything to avoid spending the holiday season with their relations. They lie, saying they can’t visit because they’re going abroad to do charity work when, in fact, they’re going to sun themselves on a tropical beach.

They get caught out when interviewed on TV after fog closes the airport and stops them flying off to Fiji for Christmas. Their relations see them on the TV, leaving the couple with no alternative but visit all four families in one day in what might be called Meet The Parents At Christmas.

Both Vaughn and Witherspoon can do comedy but can’t do much with the dire script, clumsy farcical situations and slapstick humour involving vomiting babies, cagefighting brothers, bouncy castles and installing a satellite dish.

Such notable actors as Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Mary Steenburgen and Sissy Spacek are left floundering – and overacting – in a bid to give their parents some character.