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.

‘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 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.

Happily unmarried San Francisco couple Brad (Vaughn) and Kate (Witherspoon) have been together for years but have no plans to walk down the aisle.

Every December 25, the lovebirds make outlandish, charity work-related excuses to their loved ones so they can jet off to sunnier climes to soak up the sun.

‘You lie to your families at Christmas time?’ a friend gasps.

‘You can’t really spell families without lies,’ replies Brad.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature scuppers their plans to fly to Fiji by submerging San Francisco airport in fog.

All planes are grounded and a TV news crew pounces on Brad and Kate at check-in, broadcasting their plight to their parents who are watching at home.

Reluctantly, the couple must visit their four respective households in one day, each reunion more deranged and painful than the last.

Four Christmases is a tinsel-strewn retread 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.

The first stopover with Brad’s father (Robert Duvall) and his Ultimate Fighting Championship obsessed brothers (Jon Favreau, Tim McGraw) careens into the realms of the absurd too quickly, while vomit and urine stain the next segment with Kate’s New Age convert mother (Mary Steenburgen).

The film runs out of steam before brief visits to Brad’s mother (Sissy Spacek) and Kate’s father (Jon Voight, blink and you’ll miss him).

Witherspoon and Vaughn gamely fling themselves into each misguided comic set piece but ultimately look embarrassed as their lovebirds break-up then make-up.

‘It really doesn’t bother me if you were an abnormally fat baby with lesbian tendencies,’ says Brad tenderly.

What a silver-tongued charmer.

• Release Date: Wednesday 26 November 2008
• Certificate: 12A
• Runtime: 88mins

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