Review: A Christmas Tale (4/5); Beverly Hills Chihuahua (1/5)

A Christmas Tale
(Arnaud Desplechin)
Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Anne Consigny, Mathieu Amalric, Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni.
Running time: 150 minutes.
(IFI Club)

“All happy families resemble one another,” said Leo Tolstoy in Anna Karenina. “But each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Arnaud Desplchin’s fascinating, minorly-flawed study of family dysfunction has, strangely, an uncanny resemblance to the emotional mechanics of Jonathan Demme’s forthcoming Rachel Getting Married. But it still manages to be unhappy in its own unique way – with a kind of free-wheeling, free-style, jazzy Frenchness that once made Gallic movies hip.

A Christmas Tale has an impeccable line-up and perfectly judged performances. The parents are played by Catherine Deneuve – who else to play a mother frozen in her own isolation? – while her ribbitting, toady husband is played as a gentle beneficent by Jean-Paul Roussilon.

Years ago they lost a child. Now their remaining three children are a handful: writer Sylvia (Anne Consigny) detests her feckless, alcoholic older brother Henri (Mathieu Amalric in generous form) and has him banished from the family. Then there’s their once fragile younger brother Ivan (Melvil Poupaud).

Imagine if Wes Anderson had grown up in France – the comedy is dark, eccentric and border-line wacky but the sentimentality is toned down. The joints of the family drama are fitted together like a thriller, including ominous cellos. It’s much too long, while a subplot involving Ivan and his wife (Chiara Mastroianni) borders on the ridiculous.

But it’s a loving portrait of an unlovely family at Christmas, carefully tuned to the invisible, emotional winds that blow through family.


Beverly Hills Chihuahua
(Raja Gosnell):
Jamie Lee Curtis, Piper Perabo, Manolo Cardona.
Voices: Drew Barrymore, Andy Garcia.
Running time: 91 minutes. (G)


Paris Hilton is a bitch. A pampered, diamonded, snow-white, fluffy bitch. Disney has reincarnated the spirit of America’s human poodle into a dog called Chloe in this live-action talking dogs movie. She’s now an obnoxious four-legged fiend owned by fashion maven Vivian (Jamie Lee Curtis).

Fluffy Chloe is left in the company of another white, fluffy poodle – Vivian’s niece Rachel (Piper Perabo) – who takes her to Mexico on holidays, only for the pooch to be dog-napped. Can imprisoned Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore) escape the organised dogfight ring? Can she escape El Diablo (voice of Edward James Olmos), the vicious Doberman sent to recapture her and her helper Delgado (voice of Andy Garcia)?
Will Rachel and hunky Mexican gardener Sam (Manolo Cardona), who set out to find Chloe, fall in love?

This pedigree glum has animated talking muzzles, but it looks like reconstituted scraps of various kiddy movies from the 1980s. It should just about pass muster for young kids.