Had France submitted Arnaud Desplechin’s family saga as its official entry for the Best Foreign-Language Oscar, it would have stood a good chance of being nominated; instead, the country went with The Class (which opened in limited release this past week), relegating this to no more than an extreme long shot for a Best Original Screenplay nod. No matter: Desplechin and co-writer Emmanuel Bourdeu have constructed a warmly inviting motion picture that needs no statues to declare its worth.
If the Hollywood hit Four Christmases takes family dysfunction to its comic extremes, A Christmas Tale plays it closer to real life, finding both humor and heartbreak as it focuses on the members of the Vuillard clan gathering over the holidays. The most recognizable names (or, for those not versed in French cinema, most recognizable faces) are those of French superstar Catherine Deneuve, still lovely after all these decades, and Mathieu Amalric, suddenly all over the place thanks to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Quantum of Solace (in which he portrays Bond’s nemesis). She plays Junon, the matriarch faced with fatal illness; he plays oldest son Henri, who doesn’t get along with either his mother or his sister (Anne Consigny). Their younger brother (Melvil Poupaud) also figures into the proceedings, as do various spouses, nephews and friends. The performances are uniformly fine, although it’s the raspy-voiced Jean-Paul Roussillon who steals scenes as Junon’s husband, the perpetually patient paterfamilias who serves as the eye of the hurricane in this tumultuous household.
This article appears in Dec 23-30, 2008.
