I’ve waited a long time to lose the Desplechin virginity, and finally got around to it recently by watching “Un Conte De Noel.” The films tells the story of the Vuillard family, with a history of shared mental and physical illnesses,making their family an atypically unhappy one.

The critics, from what I’ve read thus far, tend to be split along two lines:those that admire the film despite the plot not always being “coherent”, and enjoying the “spectacle” aspects of the film, versus those that believe in substance over style and found the movie to be essentially empty at the core.

There are some real family conflicts here, but I can see how some people think the pathos of that has been lost amid all the black comedy and sketch-like scenes. Part of this is due to the fantastic ensemble cast, including Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Almaric, Melvin Poupaud and others. With actors as talented as these, one would believe that Desplechin would just get out of the way and let them act–which is usually not a bad strategy, but which can backfire when the arc and rhythm of the film are sacrificed along the way.

There are some parts that I found a bit off-putting or confusing, like the bit with the cousin and one of the wives of the sons. The wife is played by Chiara Mastroianni, the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello. She combines the physical look of her father (esp. the features of her face) and the sultriness of her mother. It’s all that stuff about former, unrequited and uncompleted loves, and whether or not we can go back, salvage some of that emotion, reverse and change, if only for a night, the inalterable.

Almaric’s madcap performance is quite enjoyable, though it kind of grates on you after awhile. Other notable performances include the father and the mother, the latter portrayed by Catherine Deneuve. The elders of the cast were, in my opinion, the best, wearing these roles like old shoes. There is a soothing naturalism to such performances that only happens when you get a good match between actor and role, and that’s something that cannot entirely be prepackaged into a script, even if you are writing that script for a particular actor. In any case, it’s that naturalism that makes these performances so eminently watchable.