This movie covers the emotional territory that I was looking for in My Sister's Keeper. And it is really not a Christmas Tale at all. It is a dysfunctional family tale that takes place at Christmas time. The story starts decades before, with a family of four, with one on the way: a mother, a father, and two children, a boy and a girl. The boy, Joseph, develops leukemia and he needs a bone marrow transplant, but alas, none of the family is compatible. So the hopes and fears of the family focus on the unborn child, a boy, Henri. But alas, Henri is not compatible either. Joseph gets sicker and sicker still, then dies. Baby Henri goes from savior to scapegoat, shunned by his mother almost as soon as he entered the world. One additional child is born after Joseph's death, and he goes on to fill the family 'sick' role.
Fast forward to the present. Henri has been banned at family gatherings after repeated bad behavior, but a new crisis has arisen. His mother, Junon Vuillard (flawlessly acted by Catherine Deneuve) has a blood disease for which she requires a bone marrow transplant. All relatives get tested to see who might be compatable. Lo and behold, while she does not like Henri and makes no pains to hide her dispassion, he and the son of her daughter are the best match. So the daughter seeks redemption for her lack of compatability to Joseph through her son. Henri, who has lived the life of the damned, cannot play the role of savior with any sort of elan, though he takes several stabs at it. It is an homage to the reverberations of trauma across generations.
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