Themes: Sibling Relationships, Eccentric Families, Family Gatherings
Main Cast: Claude Rich, Françoise Fabian, Sabine Azéma, Emmanuelle Béart, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Release Year: 1999
Country: FR
Run Time: 107 minutes
Plot
Noted French screenwriter Daniele Thompson makes her directorial debut with this lighthearted romantic comedy. After the December 21st funeral of Yvette's (Francoise Fabian) second husband, she is consoled by the three daughters from her first marriage to Stanislas (Claude Rich), a Russian-Jewish violinist. The oldest, Lorba (Sabine Azema), lives with her father and makes a living by singing ballads in a Russian cabaret, Sonia (Emmanuelle Beart) is a fastidious middle-class housewife, and Yvette's youngest, Milla (Charlotte Gainsbourg), is a go-getting businesswoman. As Christmas celebrations gather steam, Louba learns that at age 42, she is unexpectedly pregnant by Gilbert, her married lover of 12 years. Meanwhile, Sonia develops a habit of taking five-finger discounts while shopping, and Milla takes up with a mysterious drifter who lives as a boarder in Stanislas' house. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Review
An ingratiating comedy that effortlessly shifts gears into involving dramatics, Daniele Thompson's film also manages to walk a fine line between celebrating the Christmas holiday and trashing how its commercialism induces false expectations. Beginning with a funeral on December 21 which precipitates a change in plans for a family holiday gathering, the story packs an almost inordinate amount of confrontations and revelations into four days. This is a story about a family that has never come to grips with its father and mother's basic incompatibility, and the reactions of the three daughters-the oldest is mired in a dead-end affair with a married man, the middle one puts up a false front of bourgeois respectability, and the youngest is a businesswoman whose cynical shell conceals easily bruised feelings-runs the gamut of reactions to their parents' fractious marriage. Thompson, who collaborated with her son Chris (who plays Joseph, the mysterioso boarder) on the screenplay, is perfectly attuned to the desperation of women trying so hard not to replicate a bad example that they create their own brands of disasters. The soundtrack cleverly layers an assortment of Christmas songs, many sung by Dean Martin, as a witty counterpoint to the frantic actions of characters trying to reconcile their ideals of what a holiday should be (nicely dramatized when several of them speak directly to the camera) with the messiness of reality. The Thompsons know that the ideals the popular culture has built up around the holiday are worth striving toward, but they refuse to tie all of their characters' fates with a neat bow in time for the morning of December 25. It's hard to imagine that any Hollywood film offering the same kind of flawed characters in the same setting and not giving in to a sentimental, we-are-family wrapup. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
