Adultery, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, depression, and intense sibling rivalry are just a few of the family problems magnified by the Christmas season in La Bûche, writer-director Danièle Thompson's surprisingly uplifting tribute to holiday dysfunction. A much-needed antidote to the gross hysterics and pat homilies of most of its American counterparts—this means you, What's Cooking?—the film captures the added bustle of the season without lapsing into soap-operatics or slapstick. In fact, it's almost better for what it isn't than for what it is: There are no scorched turkeys, no dinner-table revelations, and no attempts to wring every last tear out of the audience. A minor-key gem with an acknowledged debt to Woody Allen's Hannah And Her Sisters, La Bûche pulls off Hannah's tricky tone, finding something light (though not insubstantial) in the messy, complicated lives of cosmopolitan adults. Thompson, a veteran screenwriter making her directorial debut, has plenty of experience writing for a large ensemble, as evidenced by her scripts for 1975's Cousin, Cousine (predictably bastardized in the Hollywood remake Cousins) and 1998's Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train. Most of her attention is focused on three sisters, products of a long-broken marriage who are breaking homes of their own in turn. At 42, Sabine Azéma works as a singer in a gypsy cabaret and spends her off nights nurturing a 12-year affair with a man (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) who has no intention of leaving his wife and children. Emmanuelle Béart, married into wealth and superficial happiness, maintains the façade of a perfect life, but even her kids know her husband cheats on her. The youngest of the three, Charlotte Gainsbourg, suffers bouts of loneliness and depression, which alienate her from the rest of the family. With curiosity and compassion, Thompson deftly flits from one storyline to the next like a mingling partygoer, catching bits and pieces of all the interesting conversations in the room. Though she fills the Cinemascope frame with bright seasonal décor and the soundtrack with traditional carols, her feelings about the holiday are profoundly indifferent, touching neither false extreme of happiness or dysfunction. In that way and others, La Bûche comes refreshingly close to the true Christmas spirit.