Christmas Tale, A (Un conte de Noël)

In A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), Junon (Deneuve) and Abel (Roussillon) are the parents of three grown children: Elizabeth (Consigny), a melancholic playwright with a mathematician husband and a tortured teenage son, Paul (Berling); Henri (Amalric), the self-destructive black sheep, banished from family events by Elizabeth five years prior; and youngest Ivan (Poupaud), the peacemaker married to the beautiful Sylvia (Mastroianni). Ivan's eldest died from leukemia as a boy. When the disease reappears again in the family, the troubled family gathers at Christmas to discuss who can be a bone marrow transplant donor. That simple family-reunion however, can't begin to describe the unpredictable, emotionally volatile experience that ensues. There is feuding, drunkenness, and bed-hopping, as everyone struggles to make sense of the mysteries of life. (Gary Reber)