When their regal matriarch falls ill, the troubled Vuillard family come together for a hesitant Christmastime reunion. Among them is rebellious ne'er-do-well Henri and the uptight Elizabeth. Together under the same roof for the first time in many years, their intricate, long denied resentments and yearnings emerge again.
Acting
Mathieu Amalric's Henri: magnificent disaster personified.
Writing
Dialogue so dense it needs footnotes—and rewards them.
Direction
Desplechin's restless camera refuses to look away.
Director
Arnaud Desplechin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Desplechin loosely modeled the Vuillards on his own family; the film's original French title 'Un conte de Noël' winks at Dickens while rejecting his sentimentality entirely.
The bone marrow transplant plot deliberately echoes 'Philadelphia'—but here the medical crisis exposes moral rot, not heroism. Desplechin called it 'the opposite of a Christmas movie.'
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