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Getting a dysfunctional family together at Christmas is both a film genre and, too often, a wretched cliche. While there are classics in this vein, such as Frank Capra's still glorious It's a Wonderful Life, there are many less wonderful movies to remind how this genre is fraught with peril.
Enter the intellectually playful French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin. He embraces and indulges the excesses of the genre in A Christmas Tale and magically turns them into a minor masterpiece. Known originally as Un Conte de Noel, this challenging yet rewarding film plays here in French with English subtitles.
As a tragi-comedy plumbing the depths of real family problems, A Christmas Tale will not be to all tastes, especially because it is epic-length and gutsy enough to pry into the creepiest corners of everyday life.
But the extraordinarily deft script, which Desplechin co-authored with Emmanuel Bourdieu, is full of sly surprises. And Desplechin gathered a sensational cast to realize his vision. Among them is Catherine Deneuve as the matriarch of the Vuillard clan of Roubaix.
She is casually facing death from a form of leukemia that runs in the family. A bone marrow transplant may save her life -- or kill her. Sons, daughters and grandchildren get involved in the drama as they gather for Christmas.
Yet the movie is not really about Deneuve's mortality. Instead, it untangles the tortuous web of relationships among the family members, both the blood relatives and those brought associated by marriage.
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For example -- and this is one subtle example of how Desplechin gets naughty -- Chiara Mastroianni plays Deneuve's not-so-favoured daughter-in-law. In real life, of course, she is Deneuve's daughter and they are very close. So the film teases our expectations.
Another key role is played by Mathieu Amalric (magnificent in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Here he is emotionally, not physically incapacitated. Yet the effect is nearly as powerful.
Amalric channels a part of Desplechin himself, because A Christmas Tale has autobiographical undertones. But not literally. The sister who despises Amalric is not based directly on one of Desplechin's own sisters, despite real-life frisson that surfaced when the film debuted at Cannes in May.
Other key roles are played beautifully by Jean-Paul Roussillon and Emmanuelle Devos, although I could cite everyone with a speaking role. The ensemble is entirely excellent and faithful to the goal of making the story seem real, even when there is a fable-like quality about how life is compressed.
As a film, A Christmas Tale neither lectures nor hectors. It is endearing, and yet sometimes searing. We know these people. We identify with them as characters, as archetypes. We are these people, with the benefit of distance and the luxury of observation.
Meanwhile, if I have made the enterprise sound dreary or oppressively sad, I am sorry. Because A Christmas Tale is filled with a strange joy, too, even when we stride into the darkness.
(This film is rated 14-A)