Film Review: A Christmas Tale

Dense, energetic, occasionally indulgent but ultimately involving family drama, about the travails of a dysfunctional extended middle-class family who convene to celebrate Christmas, delivers gifts by way of a sterling cast led by Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric.

Doris Toumarkine

Nov 14, 2008, 02:44 PM ET

Employing the time-honored dramatic gimmick of bringing members of a messed-up family together for what should be an upbeat event—sometimes it’s a wedding or birthday, and here it’s that eponymous holiday—Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale slides a bundle of desirable and not-so-desirable presents under his cinematic tree, including a complex story of failure and triumph among characters who are both familiar and surprising.

Not such cause for celebration is the fact that Desplechin’s sprawling film, at well over two hours, may strike some as sitting through the 12 days of Christmas. Plus, festivities are also marred by a murky backstory (medical histories, etc.) and too much self-indulgence, as both details important and less so are mixed into the eggnog. No Tell No One-like business here, but this intelligent French entry should engage a sizeable art-house crowd, especially those who relish stars Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric.

Largely taking place over the Christmas holidays in the comfortable home in Roubaix (Desplechin’s real-life neck of the woods) of matriarch Junon (Deneuve) and husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon), the story initially sets up the ongoing battle, even taken as far as the courts, between siblings Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), a successful playwright, and black sheep Henri (Mathieu Amalric), a feisty, combative, indigent nonconformist who has also alienated his mother.

But Junon, as Christmas approaches, learns that she has cancer and must find someone in the family with the rare blood type needed for a successful bone marrow transplant. The winner might be Henri and, as the family somewhat awkwardly comes together in Roubaix, the, um, marrow of their drama unfolds over this issue.

Suspense ensues over whether Junon and Henri can reconcile to the extent that the son will provide his cold mother with the needed transplant. And will the bitter Elizabeth and Henri bury the hatchet? Later in the story, romantic complications arise: The charmer Ivan (Melvil Poupaud), the youngest sibling, is married to Sylvia (Chiara Mastroianni), but she has a thing for family cousin Simon (Laurent Capelluto).

With so much going on inside the house (there are few exteriors), audiences will get caught up in these family dilemmas. But indulgences distract. These include iris shots that serve no purpose, and characters sometimes addressing the camera.

The plot zigzags here and there between past and present. And the family kids running around provide no more than holiday ambiance. Other characters also just show up; these include the quirky, mute Faunia (Emmanuelle Devos), Henri’s oddball Jewish girlfriend; Rosaimee (Françoise Bertin), the family grandmother’s former partner; nephew Paul (Emile Berling), with mental problems but the rare blood type Junon requires; and Claude (Hippolyte Girardot), Elizabeth’s estranged husband, who has no apparent reason to be there.

The relentless soundtrack music is all over the genre map, also symptomatic of the lack of discipline that plagues the film. But who really cares in the case of something like A Christmas Tale, which invites you in for the holidays and diabolically makes you part of the family?

Film Review: A Christmas Tale

Dense, energetic, occasionally indulgent but ultimately involving family drama, about the travails of a dysfunctional extended middle-class family who convene to celebrate Christmas, delivers gifts by way of a sterling cast led by Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric.

Doris Toumarkine

Nov 14, 2008, 02:44 PM ET