Anne Consigny, Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni
The Vuillard's shared history of physical and mental illness, estrangement, self harm, and loss doesn't lead itself to the idea of a cheerful holiday season. But can a Christmastime reunion, a scheme ...( read more
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DVD Release Date: November 10, 2009
Stats: 475 reviews
French family drama with strong performances but rather too much abstract philosophizing and strange continental angst for me.
Dysfunctional families and Christmas movies go hand in hand - but rarely are these films such elaborate dramas. Running a generous two and a half hours and boasting nearly a dozen primary characters, French director Arnaud Desplechin certainly grants the viewer a visual feast. In...( read more)
Great acting (I'd pay to watch Deneuve read from the phone book) and an interesting story.
But ultimately it was just too convoluted and left too many unanswered questions for my taste.
Wanted to like it more then I did.
A dense, involving look at a family reluctantly drawn together for the holidays (is there ever any other kind?).
I'm sorry, but I don't know what so many otherwise trustworthy critics saw in this. It was a mess.
European cinema is always far from what Americans could ever come up with. each country here has a specific characteristic (from the frankness of Spanish films to the fairytale softness of french one and to the brutality of Romanian cinema, among others).
and even if it might be...( read more)
the story is complicated n rich. I like the flow n the technique the director applied. I like it very much.
C'est bien simple, je n'ai regardé que la première moitié, tellement ce film est prétentieux, pédant et ridicule. Les dialogues sont à mourir de rire, les acteurs récitent, l'histoire sans logique, et certains passages sont vraiment trop faussement auteuristes...
Not only did it make me reluctant to see another small foreign film again; it made me never want to hear the French language again.
Couldn't ask for a better cast,yet its main problem is that it develops a series of problematic family relationships without hitting their core.
In this dark comedy everyone is at the end of someone else's strings. full review
A strangely encompassing collection of private moments among the members of a large family with a fraught history. full review
Depslachin's film is not brimming over with good cheer, hardly, but it is warm and sometimes funny and refreshingly honest, illustrating the complicated beast that often is family. full review
Watching A Christmas Tale is like getting to know a family other than your own by leafing through its scrapbooks and laughing at its photograph albums, while it bickers in the next room over stuff you... full review
Some wry humor runs through the course of the overly long saga. But there's not enough dark wit to mitigate the tedium and pretentiousness. full review
After two and a half hours in the thrilling, exhausting company of the characters in A Christmas Tale, the intimacy we feel with them is wired with surprise. full review
A Christmas Tale isn't repugnant, just regressive. The modern family film has moved beyond this Gallic update of I Remember Mama. full review
Dark secrets are unlocked, words draw more blood than punches, and [director] Desplechin turns one family into a universe that resembles life as a startling work of art. full review
A Christmas Tale is a bad dream with just enough distance to give us a midwinter's night's laugh. full review
This board looks lonely. Be the first to talk about "Un Conte de Noël (A Christmas Tale)" !
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