MartinHafer
If you hate Christmas and think that love and family are as fleeting as the wind, then I sure have a recommendation for you--"La Bûche". It's thoroughly unpleasant and a cynic's idea of comedy. I noticed other reviewers generally loved this film, though I really have no idea why. I'd rather shove my head into a gas oven than see this one again!! The film begins at a funeral. Yvette's husband has died and her three daughters from a previous marriage have arrived at the graveside to be with her. Over the course of the film, you learn that EVERYONE in the film--not just Yvette and her family but EVERYONE is selfish, cheats on their spouses and are emotional messes. All are self-involved and foolish and for some reason with this death and Christmas just a few days away, folks start to reminisce--though for the most part, what they look back on was only temporary and a charade. Now here's the weird part--no one takes relationships seriously in this film and everyone is self-absorbed, yet it is somehow supposed to be funny and uplifting! What's funny and uplifting about a woman who has been having an affair with a married man for 12 years and is now pregnant (while the man's wife is ALSO pregnant)? What's funny and uplifting about a divorced couple who finally sit down together after decades of animosity and discuss all the affairs they had while they were married? And, what's funny and uplifting about a couple who appear happy, successful and have a young child--yet are splitting up at Christmas? The only positive thing I can say about this film is that the acting was very good. The story, on the other hand, is only enjoyable if you hate family, hate Christmas and assume everyone is a cheat. God bless us, everyone!
Galina
Three sisters, the Parisians with the sweet Russian names, Sonya, Lyuba and Milla and their parents who have been divorced for 25 years but still have a lot to say to each other are in the center of this charming, clever, funny, touching and poignant dramedy that takes place one year in Paris from December 20 till Christmas Eve. It will start with the funeral and it will end with the Christmas party in which all members of this dysfunctional family participate but many events will happen before the party, important decisions will be taken, life-changing revelations will occur and all of it with the background of incredible Paris decorated for Christmas and the sound of beloved Christmas songs and some unforgettable Russian and Jewish songs. Danièle Thompson directed a marvelous movie for which she and her son Christian (who also stars) wrote a script. Three beautiful and talented actresses play the sisters. Sabine Azéma is Lyuba, the older of the three (the songs that she performers in a Russian cabaret almost reduce me to tears), Emmanuelle Béart is Sonya, the only one of the sisters who seems to have found happiness in her picture perfect family life but there is more than meets the eye. Charlotte Gainsbourg (the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, a very talented young actress whom I like in everything I've seen her) is Milla, the youngest sister, a brilliant computer programmer, the rebel and the loner who spends all her time at work.
noralee
How charming to walk from Christmas-decorated 5th Avenue into the Paris Theater on 58th St. to see Christmas-decorated Paris in "La Bûche" with its soundtrack of American Christmas standards. I've been told the title refers to the Yule Log, as in "La Bûche de Noel," but evidently everyone but me just knows this and it's never mentioned, let alone translated in the movie. It's a very French, very laugh-out loud funny "Hannah and Her Sisters" or a French Christmas take on the Thanksgiving in "What's Cooking." Characters speak to the camera to explain the back story on the intertwined family of ex's and affairs and siblings and step-parents, adult children, aging parents (with lives! how very not Hollywood!) and babies. Characters learn about each other, some change their minds and attitudes based on that information, some don't, and family dysfunction continues with not Hollywood endings, but rather endings that make sense for each character's sanity, so are more like real life than Hollywood. Any re-make will take away all the messy charm and focus on the Christmas Eve dinner which unpredictably here turns into an anti-climax. This is a delight, as the blurbs would say, but with a warning that it is a chick flick --the men are secondary, though quite rounded and not unsympathetic characters. Stay for the long cute joke in the credits, but I had to infer it because it wasn't translated, so I couldn't tell how satirical it was.(originally written 12/3/2000)
Arnold Reinhold
I saw this film and The Royal Tenenbaums in the course of the same week. The themes were very similar (a coincidence?), but La Buche was more interesting, more believable and more enjoyable. I cared about the characters. Gene Hackman's brood were cardboard cutouts. And La Buche didn't need the Hollywood formulaic 500 milliseconds of exposed breast to earn its adult status.
AD
