A Christmas Tale

Family drama is a tried and true formula for a movie. It goes as far back as ancient tragedy if not further. Sometimes its done terribly, sometimes its managed in a mediocre way and sometimes its done well. Rarely it goes done very well. If you wanted a recent example of terribly done I'd point to The Family Stone. Wretched in almost every respect and down right confusing and manipulative at many points. Last year's Rachel Getting Married I would lump in the mediocre category. It was loved by some but between the nausea inducing camera work and the heavy handed push of ideal liberal world, it really cuts its potential bite.

When it comes down to a dysfunctional family, from last year, its not Rachel's wedding and sister Kim who take the lead but the family of A Christmas Tale. Here we are introduced to a large family that ends up coming together at Christmas (including the estranged son) in part because the matriarch is dying. Thrown basically in medias res into the whole situation, it never becomes entirely clear what happened to cause the exile of Henri (Mathieu Amalric).

Its been too long since I saw the film to recall all the individual story lines and I'm not sure I could have recalled them all two months ago when I saw the film. Suffice to say that the story carries you on, as you watch a family of love and dysfunction. Key in my view is the performance Jean-Paul Roussillon as head of family Abel. A loving father and grandfather, even when faced with the sadness of his ailing wife, the disappointment that his family can't all get along or the sadness of a lost child that still hangs over the family, he commands the scenes he is in as an ever patient, pleasant man who wishes every Christmas and perhaps every day could be spent with his family.

The family feels ever so real in its actions and interactions. Even if you don't understand the rifts, you believe them. This is the film's strength. Its weakness is perhaps its frequent almost direct camera addresses and a bit too much flying back and forth between stories with the result that I at times got quite confused as to what was going on. Still the family drama is well crafted and grim dysfunction at such a festive time never seemed so fascinating.