A CHRISTMAS TALE — CANNES 2008

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

It wouldn’t be Cannes without at least one French movie about familial angst, social ennui, and the specter of death.

 

Arnaud Desplechin brought the goods this year with his irreverent, multi-layered story, set in his hometown of Roubaix, about Abel (Jean-Paul Roussllon) and his wife Junon Vuillard (Catherine Deneuve) whose loss of a son to lymphoma informs their existence.

 

 

Now years later with three grown children—Ivan (Melvil Poupaud), a hopeless romantic, Henri (Mathieu Amalric), the family black sheep, and Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), who disowned Henri five years ago — reunite for Christmas.

 

 

In need of a bone-marrow transplant, Junon has limited choices for a donor, but doesn’t let even the threat ruffle her Gallic feathers.

 

 

There are no martyrs in this anti-sentimental ironic movie that nevertheless percolates with emotion and accepts its quirky characters for all of their flaws. 

 

Not Rated. 150 mins.