A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noel)

"You are not even close to ordinary," Sylvia (Chiara Mastroianni) tells her husband Ivan (Melvin Poupaud) in Arnaud Desplechin's prickly holiday drama A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noel). Sylvia is referring not only to her handsome husband, but his entire family, the Vuillards, who come together for Christmas after learning that family matriarch Junon (the regal and gorgeous Catherine Deneuve) is dying of cancer and needs a dangerous bone marrow transplant that will only possibly extend her life.

Ho, ho, ho. Depslachin's film is not brimming over with good cheer, hardly, but it is warm and sometimes funny and refreshingly honest, illustrating the complicated beast that often is family. The Vuillards are a sprawling group that includes three generations, Junon and her older husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon), their children Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), Henri (Mathieu Almaric), and Ivan, their children's spouses and lovers, and the grand kids, Paul, the troubled teenager recovering from psychotic episodes, and two young boys whose names both start with B, and perhaps best of all, Emmanuelle Devos as Faunia. The necessary fights and revelations that ensue when this complicated mix is brought under one roof manage to astonish in a film that remains marvelously free of histrionics.

Astonish is the right word. In a seemingly picturesque setting -- the backyard swing set, a starry night -- a mother and son talk. Junon tells her adult son, "I never loved you." Henri agrees. Neither are particularly surprised by their revelations, nor are they upset by them. Eldest daughter Elizabeth (Anne Consigny) also hates her brother Henri (Mathieu Amalric) with a near inexplicable passion. Six years earlier, she imperiously banished him from the family. He returns bearing the bone marrow that might save his ungrateful, unrepentant mother. The story goes from there.

The performances in A Christmas Tale are uniformly wonderful. Deneuve, Almaric, and Devos return after working together in Desplechin's previous film Kings and Queen. It's a joy to watch these accomplished actors on screen. Deneuve is imperious, but also impossible not to feel for. Amalric makes for a ridiculously endearing bad seed. Devos, in just a supporting role, sparkles -- an amused family outsider who brings levity to the amassed tension. As Elizabeth, Consigny is taut with suppressed rage. Deneuve's real-life daughter Mastroianni is lovely.

Desplechin has created a scenario ripe for melodrama, but thanks to Desplechin's audacious and inventive direction, the film is anything but. Maybe it's the capacity of the French, with their good looks and their constant cigarettes, glasses of red wine, to take cancer, adultery, and atrocious table manners, in absolute stride. The narrative unfolds with a surprisingly light touch; small, seemingly spontaneous moments -- those naked, happy boys in the bath tub -- reveal the pleasure that comes along with the pain as the Vuillards celebrate another year gone by.

A Christmas Tale (2008)

Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni, Anne Consigny
Directed by: Arnaud Desplechin
Produced by: Martine Cassinelli, Pascal Caucheteux, Benoit Pilot
Running Time: 2 hrs. 32 min.
Release Date: November 14th, 2008 (limited)
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Distributors: IFC Films