Coming home for the holidays often carries with it a good deal of emotional subtext, and Arnaud Desplechin mines those feelings for all they’re worth in A Christmas Tale (2008), a dense, character-driven, ensemble piece that nonetheless carries with it the lightest touch of a mesmerizing fantasy (not unlike Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece Fanny and Alexander). There’s a simple story at the heart of this tale, but Desplechin weaves together so many elements that it’s nearly unthinkable to digest it all in the first viewing.
The brilliant Catherine Deneuve stars as the matriarch of the Vuillard family, Junon. Unsentimental and rarely emotional, Junon learns she has a rare form of cancer and needs a bone marrow transplant that must come from a blood relative. Decades earlier, her firstborn son died of the same disease.
Now, with Christmas approaching, the family members gather at the Vuillard home in the midst of getting tested for their transplant compatibility. Junon’s cancer notwithstanding, the mood is already tumultuous thanks to the hostility between oldest child Elizabeth (Anne Consigny) and middle child Henri (Mathieu Amalric). Junon has banished Henri from the family, but he shows up for Christmas anyway, one of the few who’s a match to be a donor.
Youngest son Ivan (Melvil Poupaud), his wife Sylvia (Chiara Mastroianni), Henri’s girlfriend Faunia (Emmanuelle Devos), Elizabeth’s troubled son Paul (Emile Berling), and kindly patriarch Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) fill in the rest of the cracks and crevices of this tangled family history.
Desplechin shoots his scenes with supreme confidence, and he deftly balances this large cast in a way that coaxes outstanding performances (Deneuve, Amalric, and Mastroianni are all superb) without losing anyone in the shuffle. Conversely, A Christmas Tale is a sprawling, untidy heft of a film, but that’s hardly a criticism — since when has interacting with family, especially one this large, been a neat affair?
Article comments
1 - Flo
Nice article. I really liked this movie. I'm French and saw it at the theater when it got released in Paris.
"A Christmas Tale is both much more matter-of-fact and much more mysterious, using the dysfunction as a starting point rather than some kind of punchline."
Totally agree with this. I think that's what makes this movie so good and different from other movies about family.
I also found interesting that there is somewhat no closure and no ending of the story. The last scene between Amalric and Deneuve, at the hospital is great. It looks like it is cut right in the middle and it makes sense.
Their lives and their interactions are like due to this coin in Amalric's hand.
"You play?" It's cruel and moving at the same time.