Family baggage

A Christmas Tale’s Vuillard clan might look familiar | Meghan Keane

IFC Films

Arnaud Descheplin's A Christmas Tale is a fitfully charged film that transcends the usual hokey fare that typifies holiday cinema.

The film (not rated) depicts the first time in six years that three generations of the Vuillard family have gathered together for Christmas. Junon (Catherine Deneuve), the family's matriarch, has been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia, and the illness has forced two of her children, Elizabeth (Anne Consigny) and Henri (Mathieu Amalric), to put aside their differences for Christmas. There is a chance that one of Junon's children, or grandchildren, may be able to save her with a bone-marrow transplant.

Descheplin has created vivid characters that are portrayed with skill by his cast. But he refrains from excessively tinkering with them, an effort that brings the film to many frustrating yet appealing places. There are Christmas songs, midnight masses, and tears shed, but moments in the film seem less dictated by the rote necessities of a holiday drama than the strange interactions around a house populated by familiar but cantankerous visitors.