About the movie
A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noel)
Rating: 
Cast:
Catherine Deneuve; David Frenkel; Anne Consigny; Mathieu Amalric; Jean-Paul Roussillon; Laurent Capelluto; Hippolyte Girardot; Emmanuelle Devos; Françoise Bertin; Emile Berling
Directed by:
Arnaud Desplechin
READER FEEDBACK
A Christmas Tale
In many ways, Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale is linked thematically to and offers the same sometimes discomfiting pleasures as Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married. Both films center on a large, fractious family gathered in a comfy house for one of life's big rituals. Both feature a depressive grown daughter, a wild, wonderful soundtrack, and filial dynamics that strain and stretch the boundaries of civility.
And, most obvious, and profound, the families in the respective films are haunted by the death of a child.
That said, A Christmas Tale is French, and brings with it the accordant cultural and philosophical underpinnings. And the film brings with it an amazing cast of Gallic stars: Catherine Deneuve as the Vuillards' ailing matriarch, in need of a bone marrow transplant to battle cancer; Mathieu Amalric (the villain in the new Bond, Quantum of Solace) as the clan's black sheep, a loud, selfish drunk; Emmanuelle Devos as his loopy girlfriend; Deneuve's real-life daughter, Chiara Mastroianni, as her daughter-in-law; and Anne Consigny as the daughter (looking as if she could be Deneuve's offspring) who has exiled her brother from the family, and only now, at this time of crisis and Christmas, accepts his return.
Roiling with laughter, tears, drunken confessions, revelatory soliloquies, pain, sorrow, hospital visits, and various kinds of love, A Christmas Tale is a smart, sprawling, and sublimely entertaining feast.
- Steven Rea
