MovieChat Forums > Four Christmases (2008) Discussion > What exactly is the moral of the story??...

What exactly is the moral of the story???

posted 15 years ago by rrodr038
22 replies | jump to latest

So, at the beginning of the film (or very early on), we learn 2 things about Reese and Vinces' characters:
1) They don't like spending time with their families
2) They are afraid of any constraints or restrictions caused by significant commitments to each other.

It would have made much more sense if the hour or so that we invested in the middle, while they are traveling to these "Four Christmases", made significant changes in the characters that could be seen.

But at the end of the movie, we learn:
1) Neither Reese nor Vince's family has seen Reese in at least 6 months (condidering that they would be "surprised" that she was even pregnant.
2) We see nothing, other than Vince's hokey, rambling speech and the fact that they had a baby, that shows that they are more committed to each other.

I just thought it was terrible story-telling with not much resolution.

Furthermore, this story had nothing to do with Christmas. They could have called it Four Thanksgivings or Four Easters and would have had to eliminate/change maybe 10 minutes of the movie.

This movie was terrible from the start and must have written and directed by a chimp.

Sorry.

[–] Chris Engelbrecht 12 years ago

The moral is that the writers in Hollywood should never go on strike. It boomerangs back onto otherwise very talented actors (who are usually very nice people), who for some reason always gets all the credit or discredit for the outcome of the entire product.

The really strange thing is that this one is actually listed as retrieving double its budget. What's up with the Western world these days? How the hell's it fun that a baby get pranged on the head?

[–] TheFatDruidofNacyl 12 years ago

The moral of the story is that even though you have dysfunctional families doesn't mean you should be scared to have your own functional family. Just keep the dysfunctional people away.

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[–] Noone222 9 years ago

Yep

[–] TheManInOil 8 years ago

The natural conclusion for a story set up as this one was, would be to have a moral that suggests it's for the best to accept the horror of spending holidays with a lousy family, because somehow that's better than enjoying life.

It would make a pretty dreary ending. So I think they kind of realized they'd have to somehow manage to have the characters only get the good bits of having a family (their own child) without giving up their freedom. In the end it's very muddled.

The alternative, though, would be to just have an unpleasant ending where they end up just as awful as their relatives.

[–] amandawillis-55525 8 years ago

And Vince vaughn would never shut up.

[–] liscarkat (19418) a year ago

A story doesn't have to have a moral. It can be just an account of something that happened that was entertaining.