In ‘La Bu^ che,’ Holidays Set Off Family Fireworks

“La Bu^che” takes its title from a French Christmas cake, shaped like a log, heavily frosted and decorated with sparklers. It’s the piece de resistance of the Christmas meal, and this holiday treat of a movie is hard to resist too.

It marks the directorial debut of Daniele Thompson, who as a writer has collaborated on the scripts of some of France’s most popular pictures for more than 30 years. Most recently, Thompson, the daughter of actor-turned-director Gerard Oury, has collaborated with director Patrice Chereau, on the ambitious historical epic “Queen Margot” and “Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train.” Now, she has collaborated on her script with her actor-son Christopher Thompson, who appears in the film.

Those earlier films had large casts, as does “La Bu^che,” and Thompson shows, with ease and assurance, that she can direct actors as well as she writes for them. Marital infidelity, longtime liaisons outside marriage, indeed every form of love in defiance of convention are staples of the French cinema, and Thompson has wedded this topic with another, the Christmas gathering.

It arrives after considerable wry comedy and no small amount of suspense as to who will show up and whether a family will be able to put aside differences and not spoil the grand occasion.

This is not going to be so easy for the family of Stanislas Roman (Claude Rich), a retired violinist and Russian Jew who emigrated as a child. He has played Gypsy music in every Russian cabaret in Paris and seemingly never missed a chance to have an affair, despite being married once to a beautiful former movie actress, Yvette (Francoise Fabian), with whom he had three children. (Stanislas is based on family legends about Thompson’s own Russian immigrant grandfather.)

A quarter of a century has passed, and four days before Christmas Yvette’s second husband is buried, having died suddenly. Not wanting to leave her father alone, Stanislas’ eldest daughter, Louba (Sabine Azema), invites him to Christmas dinner, to be held at the home of her sister Sonia (Emmanuelle Beart).

Neither Stanislas nor Yvette is eager to see each other, to say the least, but this is just the beginning of the challenges the festive occasion presents. The film’s focal point is Louba and her just-discovered dilemma. Struggling to make ends meet as a singer in a Russian restaurant and giving Russian lessons, Louba is astonished to discover, at age 42, that she is pregnant by her married lover of 12 years (Jean-Pierre Darroussin).

In the meantime, Sonia, who has married well, is contemplating leaving her husband (Samuel Labarthe) after discovering his infidelity. Milla (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the youngest daughter, a computer specialist wary of romance, finds herself drawn to the equally cautious young man (Christopher Thompson) living in her father’s old studio-workshop--and estranged from his wife.

What concerns Thompson is the price love outside marriage can cost--the strain of lying, the pain of betrayal discovered, and the question of where allegiance ultimately lies. Thompson neither moralizes nor judges. Rather, she reveals the pain as well the joy that following one’s heart can exact, and suggests that, sooner or later, people have to be prepared to take responsibility for their actions.

Beyond this, Thompson wonders just how far family ties can go in sustaining people as they thrash through emotional conflict. Thompson is serious about these issues, but that doesn’t prevent her from treating them with humor as well as a warm, mature wisdom. Thompson’s long experience in highly commercial movies and those of a more personal bent serves her well in creating holiday entertainment that possesses wide appeal and sophistication.

In a film of one intense encounter after another, there is a standout sequence in which Yvette and Stanislas, having made a dinner date, have their first actual conversation in 25 years. Yvette suggests that they might as well let down their hair, and as it turns out, while she surely has not had as much casual sex as her ex-husband, she may have had more romance. In any event, they both have had no shortage of amour in their lives, and in their mutual candor they discover they’re able to retrieve some of the affection they once had for each other. Theirs is a love-hate relationship tempered now by an amused mutual acceptance of each other’s failings.

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

* Unrated. Times guidelines: adult themes and situations.

‘La Bu^che’

Sabine Azema: Louba

Emmanuelle Beart: Sonia

Charlotte Gainsbourg: Milla

Francoise Fabian: Yvette

Claude Rich: Stanislas

An Empire Pictures release. Director Daniele Thompson. Producer Alain Sarde. Executive producer Christine Gozlan. Screenplay by Daniele and Christopher Thompson. Cinematographer Robert Fraisse. Editor Emmanuelle Castro. Music Michel Legrand. Costumes Elisabeth Tavernier. Set decorator Michele Abbe. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes.

Exclusively at the Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869, and the Edwards South Coast Village, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana, (714) 540-0594.