Une avalanche de cadeaux

Excellent acting by each and every one, well-written witty dialogues, twist after twist - fantastic.

Heino Ferch and Martina Gedeck, parents of a big patchwork family, experience a marriage meltdown on Christmas eve - in front of her as-well-invited ex-husbands and biological fathers of her children.

If it wasn't for Jasmin Tabatabai's brooding glamour and Alexandra Neldel's pushed-up boobs, I would have walked out mid-movie. "Meine schöne Bescherung" is noisy, hysterical and utterly pointless. Everything is exaggerated to the point of ridicule and empty mannerism. What little charm there is (Santa gone bad, patchwork promiscuity, precocious youngsters), we have seen a million times before, and with more panache. The cliché extends even to the movie's cast; half the usual suspects of contemporary German cinema are there. "Meine schöne Bescherung" has "made for TV" written all over it, but I can't for the life of me figure out who this might appeal to. A couple of years ago director Vanessa Jopp said in an interview it was her dream to "make people wiser". Dream on.

We can't see anything. We are in a closet. Obviously we are not alone. A human arm, a piece of a face, heavy breathing. What - for heavens sake - is this? Cut. The closet from the outside. It's a big old fashioned wardrobe, suitcases and trunks on top of it. The wardrobe is being pushed hardly from the inside, the trunks are shaking. We are hearing a background music medley of cheerful bright jubilating Christmas carols. At the fortissimo point the doors of the closet spring open – and the wardrobe spits out a merry human couple – a man and his wife. Both are landing - still in a hug- on the carpet of a sleeping room.

This could be the beginning of a tasteless low brow plot which would give us a pain in the neck. The opposite is the case. Meine schoene Bescherung is a rejoicing brilliant firework of points, gags and astonishing twists and turns of an amusing story line performed by a powerful ensemble of divergent characters. It's a plea for living in community and companionship – and it's a pleading for the satisfaction we can take advantage of, if we dare to decide for a living with our children.

Heino Ferch and Martina Gedeck at their best.