Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
Print
As heartwarming family holiday movies go, I wouldn't suggest that you gather the kiddies and pop "A Christmas Tale" into the VCR instead of "It's a Wonderful Life" or your favorite Dickens rendering.
For one thing, it's in French (with English subtitles). More pertinent, this "Christmas Tale" is for and about a family of adults. And as familes go, the Vuillards are more problematic than most.
There are so many of them, in the first place -- all sharing a variety of mental and physical issues. Director-writer Arnaud Desplechin begins with a recap: Cold, distant Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and her lovable husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) have three living children but still seem obsessed with the death of their eldest from a rare form of leukemia. Now Junon herself has been struck by the disease, which can only be cured by a dangerous bone marrow transplant -- if and only if one of her children or grandchildren can supply the compatible replacement.
- Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Chiara Mastroianni.
- Rating: R in nature for subject matter.
- Web site: www.ifcfilms.com
The progeny aren't exactly leaping at the chance. They are, rather, leaping at each other: Unhappy daughter Elizabeth (Anne Consigny) is worried sick about her fragile son Paul (Emile Berling). She's also seething with rage toward her alcoholic brother Henri (Mathieu Amalric), whom she has banished from all family gatherings. And so forth, with the other sibs and offspring.
Now, it's Christmas in the French provinces, and three generations of the family will gather under one roof for the first time in years, to celebrate, to attempt to endure one another, to negotiate the past grudges, current illnesses and romantic complications.
Heading the superb cast, Deneuve looks impossibly younger than her years. Amalric (so brilliant in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") drives everyone crazy in a terrific performance, matched by Emmanuelle Devos as the unwelcome girlfriend he brings home. Nicest casting touch: Chiara Mastroianni -- Deneuve's real-life daughter -- as her daughter-in-law here.
Nicely balanced between comedy and tragedy, this "Tale" vividly captures the alternating warmth and hostility, trust and suspicion, manifested during the Mission Near-Impossible of bringing peace to estranged men and women of dubious will at a Christmastime reunion.
Not very cheerful holiday fare? Turns out to be more upbeat than you'd think, without any angels or friendly ghosts, thanks to Desplechin's affectionate approach to his characters -- and Junon's dispassionate approach to her fate.
