Full of heart and bile, whiskey drenched and reeking of cigarettes, A Christmas Tale hurls the viewer headfirst into a sprawling, gloriously messy, bourgeois comedy populated by a likeable, charming though often irascible, family full of sad-sacks, philosophers and self-obsessed neurotics. There’s the matriarch, Junon (Catherine Deneuve), a dragon lady who exudes maternal warmth when necessary; her husband Abel, who works diligently to keep the peace; their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, a successful playwright who banished her irredeemable younger brother, Henri (Mathieu Amalric), six years earlier; and the baby of the family, Ivan, whose puppyish contentment belies his own fading youth. Hovering above all is the ghost of young Joseph, the first-born son who died from leukemia at age six (Henri was conceived in hopes that his placenta would heal his dying, older brother). These folks, their spouses and children, gather together for a Christmas celebration tinged with dry-eyed melancholy. Junon has recently been diagnosed with leukemia and needs a donor match for a bone-marrow transplant. Thus, much to Elizabeth’s chagrin, Henri returns to the fold. Continue reading Un film de Arnaud Desplechin: Un conte de Noël