Season's Beatings

Season's Beatings

'Tis the Season to be Jolly!

1999106 min5.9 / 10

A bittersweet ensemble drama about a fractured family reassembling over Christmas to confront old wounds, infidelity, and the possibility of renewal.

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?

Essence

Ensemble

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Hidden gem

Same territory, far fewer people have seen it.