Review: A Christmas Tale

The premise of "A Christmas Tale" sounds like something out of a bad major-studio Christmas movie (one of which I sat through last weekend, but I digress): A family, fractured and split up by years of infighting and drama, comes together one Christmas when the matriarch of the family announces that she has cancer, coupled with a terminal illness that even if treated will only give her two more years or so. Now, you'd think that this synopsis would end with something like "And they all learn heartwarming lessons about the value of family," but arguably the most wonderful thing about Arnaud Desplechin's film is its stubborn refusal to accept any one family cliche at any point. To that effect, it might be the most honest portrayal of a family at Christmastime ever put on film. Certainly, it's the most brutal.

There are a massive amount of plotlines that the film juggles with a delicacy I lack, so I'll just introduce the players. Junon (Catherine Denueve) is the mother of the Vuillard family, and she is dying, but oddly upbeat about the whole situation; at any time, she seems like the only one in the room who's not worrying about her demise. Her husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) just wants to bring his family under one roof one more time. This hasn't happened in years because of Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), the perpetually depressed oldest daughter. Six years back, she bailed her ne'er-do-well brother Henri (Mathieu Almaric, also onscreen right now in far more theaters as the latest Bond villain) out of debt in exchange for his promising that he will never come near family get-togethers again as long as she is present. The youngest, Ivan (Melvil Poupad) is the problem solver, trying to hold everybody together for Junon's sake, if just for a few days.

There are far more people involved, such as Henri's girlfriend who seems bemused at the entire situation, or the young man who continually comes to Vuillard gatherings year after year despite not actually being a part of the family. The film is about the people more than the holiday and its trappings, and what a delightfully unhinged clan they are. The film does not allow us the satisfaction of understanding motives or thoughts, most of the time, even when at certain points, characters will break away from a scene and talk directly to the camera, filling in some of the narrative blanks. The film is two and a half hours long, and oddly, it feels too short, like there is much more to be understood about these people.

By far and away, Almaric is the standout performer in a film full of them. As Henri, he storms the family celebration like a whirling dervish, taking out his rage, depression and vendettas on everybody. In his very first scene onscreen, Henri falls face-first into the street while stumbling home drunk in the middle of the day, and this speaks volumes about his character. The more fascinating dynamic is between he and Elizabeth; they hate each other, but the film never really tells us why, and by the end it starts to appear as though they don't even know. At one point, Henri needles Elizabeth's husband to the point where her husband beats the hell out of him on the kitchen floor, and after, Elizabeth tends to his wounds while laughing, and more oddly, Henri will only let her attend to him, shouting at anyone else who tries.

The film is full of scenarios like this; the entire family has been blackened by years of rage towards one another, but yet they show love, at least love as far as they understand it. This means tolerating one another, or putting up with Elizabeth's crying and Henri's manic self-destruction and Junon's cold detachment from all her children, for the sake of keeping the family together. In its own bizarre way, "A Christmas Tale" captures the true essence of why family becomes so much more valued at this time of year.