Season's Beatings(La Bûche)

Name: Season's Beatings
Genre: Drama, Comedy

France · 1999
1h 46m
Director Danièle Thompson
Starring Sabine Azéma, Emmanuelle Béart, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Claude Rich
Genre Drama, Comedy

Christmas, family, and infidelity. Yvette's husband has died, and her grown daughters join her at the grave: Sonia, wealthy, bourgeois, and generous; Louba, living with their dad Stanislas, singing at a Russian restaurant, penniless, the mistress for the past 12 years of a man who will never leave his wife; Milla, the youngest, acerbic, lonesome. Christmas was when they learned their parents were divorcing 25 years ago. Over the next few days, yuletide depression, Louba's pregnancy, Sonia's crumbling marriage, Stanislas's overtures to Yvette, and Milla's attraction to the man who's her father's rent-free lodger lead each one to re-examine self, family, and hopes. Is renewal possible?

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What are critics saying?

Village Voice by Amy Taubin

By turns hilarious and wounding.

The New York Times by Dana Stevens

It unfolds with the verve and clarity of a piece of music, carefully composed and passionately played.

Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt

The fine cast helps an old-fashioned screenplay seem reasonably fresh most of the time.

San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann

Sweet and insubstantial -- just like the French Christmas cake for which it's named.

L.A. Weekly by Ella Taylor

Sweet but slight pièce de fluff.

New York Post by Jonathan Foreman

Engaging in a soap operatic, rather glib way.

Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum

The plot turns on the complicated lives of the daughters, who are played by Sabine Azema, Emmanuelle Beart, and Charlotte Gainsbourg; they, Fabian, and Rich are the main reasons for seeing this picture.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

With its lovely images of wintertime Paris and its lyrical Michel Legrand music, La Bu^che does take the cake.

Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov

Not likely to win any hearts or minds this holiday season, La Bûche finally scores points by virtue of its inoffensiveness: Relax, pour a cuppa nog, and watch somebody else muck up the holidays for once.

Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan

A confection that is ultimately better because of its bitterness.