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A Christmas Tale (2008)

A Christmas Tale
A Christmas Tale
NR
Comedy
Documentary
Drama

Release Date
May 16, 2008
Cast
Catherine Deneuve , Jean-Paul Roussillon , Anne Consigny , Mathieu Amalric , Melvil Poupaud , Hippolyte Girardot
Runtime
143
Main Genre
Comedy
Writers
Arnaud Desplechin , Emmanuel Bourdieu
Tagline
The dilemma. The reunion

Summary

Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) are the parents of three grown children: Elizabeth (Anne Consigny) is a melancholic playwright with a mathematician husband (Hippolyte Girardot) and a tortured teenage son, Paul (Emile Berling); Henri (Amalric) is the self-destructive black sheep, banished from family events by Elizabeth five years prior; youngest Ivan (Melvil Poupaud), the peacemaker, is married to the beautiful Sylvia (Chiara Mastroianni) and has two eccentric little boys; while a fourth - Joseph, the eldest - died from leukemia as a boy. When Junon is also diagnosed with leukemia, all are tested to see who can be a donor, and then the whole family - including lovesick cousin Simon (Laurent Capelluto) and Henri's daft Jewish girlfriend, Faunia (Emmanuelle Devos) - returns home for a long Christmas weekend. All crowded again under the same roof, solidarity quickly - and hilariously - devolves into feuding, drunkenness and bed-hopping, as everyone struggles to make sense of the mysteries of family, life, and what lies ahead.

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