X
- 2008
- Not Rated
- IFC Films
- 2 h 32 m
- 2008
- Not Rated
- IFC Films
- 2 h 32 m
Summary Abel and Junon had two children, Joseph and Elizabeth. Victim of a rare genetic condition, Joseph's only hope was a bone marrow transplant. As they and Elizabeth were incompatible, his parents conceived a third child in the hope of saving their son. But little Henri too was unable to help his brother, and Joseph died at the age of seven....
Directed By: Arnaud Desplechin
- 2008
- Not Rated
- IFC Films
- 2 h 32 m
- 2008
- Not Rated
- IFC Films
- 2 h 32 m
A Christmas Tale
7.3
Where to Watch
Summary Abel and Junon had two children, Joseph and Elizabeth. Victim of a rare genetic condition, Joseph's only hope was a bone marrow transplant. As they and Elizabeth were incompatible, his parents conceived a third child in the hope of saving their son. But little Henri too was unable to help his brother, and Joseph died at the age of seven....
Directed By: Arnaud Desplechin
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 32 Critic Reviews
84
91% Positive
29 Reviews
29 Reviews
9% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 32 Critic Reviews
84
91% Positive
29 Reviews
29 Reviews
9% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
At last, a great contemporary holiday movie that's strictly for grown-ups - a holiday movie that really is a moviegoer's holiday from desultory daily fare.
The Vuillards are not an easy family, and A Christmas Tale is not an easy movie. But by the end, what Desplechin has given us -- in his own inexplicable way, which is sometimes meandering and sometimes piercingly direct, and sometimes both at once -- is a benediction.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 User Ratings
7.3
72% Positive
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
28% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 User Ratings
7.3
72% Positive
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
28% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
From an American standpoint, it seems like a strange notion to gather an all-star cast to create a moving drama, especially under the guise of a Christmas film, but this is France we're talking about, and director Arnaud Desplechin (along with the whole cast) more than delivers. I was reminded a lot of "The Royal Tenenbaums" with the family struggles, and in many ways the two are similar. However, instead of wittiness being infused into the dialogue, Desplechin reserves the quirkiness for the camerawork with uncanny cinematography and editing. This lead to a strange dichotomy in which everything on screen was very tense and dramatic, but as a viewer I felt resilient and entertained the whole way through - after all, (family) drama is something we all can relate to.
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Very tense and sensitive movie. The actors have never been so right ,and well directed, and the photography is simply amazing. Although the subject is dramatic, there is a strange sense of irreality pervading in the most beautiful moments (The Christmas Play by the Children, the love night between Simon and Sylvia...
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Density of detail and intensity of experience are the twin distinctions of A Christmas Tale, a long, improbably funny and very beautiful film.
Dark secrets are unlocked, words draw more blood than punches, and Desplechin turns one family into a universe that resembles life as a startling work of art.
The film's success or failure depends almost entirely on a viewer's ability to relate to and become involved in the lives of the characters. We are with them for less than a week and, during that short time, we come to understand the lifetime of hurt and misunderstanding that stands between them.
It seemed to me as I left the theater that A Christmas Tale was a little too jumpy for its own good, with too many characters and plot points hastily interwoven. But I've come think that it is faithful to its essential purpose, which is to disprove the Tolstoyan dictum that unhappy families are each miserable in their own ways.
Characters occasionally address the camera, which helps disentangle the competing story lines of madness, adultery, and betrayal.
I was not crazy about this at first. Oh heavens, thought I, a soapy French dramedy about a troubled bourgeois family that is gathering for their first Christmas together in years. And it is that, but as I watched, it grew on me. It is a Christmas tale for the 21st century, full of neurosis, but also laughter, emotion, and energy. There are fine performances and charming scenes. Not all of the casting choices are great, especially Roussillon as the paterfamilias; he seems more like an old comic actor than the businessman husband of Catherine Deneuve. The film often seems to be trying too hard to grab and hold the viewer's attention, but it does succeed.
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Today is Christmas Day, so it is the most apposite time to watch this French drama, rife with cancer, marrow transplant, siblings rivalry, unstable mentality, chronic depression, familial incest and distant mother-child relationship, very Christmasy!
A follow-up of KINGS & QUEEN (2004, 6/10), French art house director Arnaud Desplechin concocts a fine potpourri of familial entanglements around the bourgeois Vuillard family, opens with a consequential animated preamble of the loss of their eldest son Joseph at the age of 6 due to a hereditary blood disease while no compatible marrow transplant is found in both parents, the daughter Elizabeth (Consigny) and the second son Henri (Amalric), who is conceived to offer a cure to his elder brother. But time goes on, a third son Ivan (Poupaud) is born, and now they are all grown-ups, then the matriarch Junon (Denueve) discovers that she suffers from the same disease, the only compatible donors are Henri and Elizabeth’s son Paul (Berling), hence this Christmas, a family reunion is endowed with a more grave determinant, especially for the black sheep in the family Henri, after a 6-year banishment (due to an unspecified riff with Elizabeth), his return with his new Jewish girlfriend Faunia (Devos) will undoubtedly thrust the tension with Elizabeth’s family and have an impact on Junon’s final resolve to her impending treatment.
Screen time is almost equally allotted to the all-star cast with their own stories intermingle in a short span of the timeline, although the main stream focuses on Henri and Junon’s reconciliation, but it is not a beatific movie to bury the hatchet and embrace a pristine future, every family has its distinctive script written with plenitude of relatable interactions, notably, the mutual attraction between Ivan’s wife Sylvia (played by Chiara Mastroianni, Denueve’s real life daughter with Marcello Mastroianni) and Ivan’s cousin Simon (Capelluto) clicks wonderfully in the latter part of the film, it is very French as well, for moralistic puritans and prudes, it is a sheer crevice in their convictions which will prompt harsh opprobrium.
One trait of superfluity is the chunk of monologues, colloquies with staccato coherence, loose ends are all over the place, we can never decipher the real motivations and reasons behind certain behaviors which adhere to a particular terrain of mores; also the peephole shots introduces each chapter gives the film a stage structure and the occasional talk-to-the-camera shtick often comes out of nowhere, they may variegate the viewers’ recipiency but are inconsistent in the plot development and engender some distractions hinder the appreciation.
Amalric and Mastroianni are my pick among the ensemble, he is a true thespian with utter devotion while she bears her father’s resemblance and an arresting existence whenever she is on screen. Devos is enjoyable as an unobtrusive intruder (reminds me to watch an Angela Basset film), Denueve is as distant as always, graceful but stereotyped, Poupaud is too damn good-looking for his shyness and benevolence and Consigny is perpetually frowned and distressed, enclosed in her own little world, one might feel too depressed to invest in her.
In conclusion, it is not your average Christmas flick, but a less chic showpiece about kindred liaisons than Assayas’ SUMMER HOURS (2008, 8/10).
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Production Company
Why Not Productions,
France 2 Cinéma,
Wild Bunch,
Bac Films,
Canal+,
CinéCinéma,
Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC),
C.R.R.A.V. Nord Pas de Calais,
Région Nord-Pas-de-Calais,
Sofica UGC 1
Release Date Nov 14, 2008
Duration 2 h 32 m
Rating Not Rated
Website
http://a-christmas-story.jp/
Awards
César Awards, France
• 1 Win & 9 Nominations
International Cinephile Society Awards
• 1 Win & 6 Nominations
Alliance of Women Film Journalists
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
