Christmas movies

It's not easy, finding movies that will please everyone. Mother will leave the room and play on her iPad rather than watch science fiction. Father will go to bed early if the movie is too romantic. Then there is the question of French or English, sub-titles or simultaneous translation by yours truly?
Deafness doesn't help.
But a little bit of advance research is always good. And Netflix do carry a small range of French movies. And Google Play was available for the movies that Papa was interested in (although they were not available for rent, just for sale).

• Attila Marcel: a very sweet movie; sad and funny; funny and sad; if you like Amélie, you will probably love this story of a young man whose parents died when he was two and who's been brought up by his two eccentric, doting and overbearing aunts since.
• Emotifs Anonymes: Romantics Anonymous in English. Another quirky story. Romantic, yes, but my father watched it to the end. Probably because a famous actor from our hometown was in it, Benoît Poelvoorde. A love story - and how suffering from social anxiety disorder should not stop anyone from finding true love. And no, I didn't know him when I was young, although we are the same age. He went to boarding school, and clearly didn't mix with us riff raff kids.
• Saving Mr Banks: we had taped this one, so it was in English only. My mother showed no interest, whereas my dad found it really interesting (I translated the occasional bit, throwing an explanation here and there when I thought the plot needed it). Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson are fantastic as Walt Disney and P.L. Travers negotiating the film rights for Mary Poppins. I loved it.
• The Martian: this was a special request from my Dad. We had to buy it on Google Play, as it wasn't available to rent. But that's OK. I enjoyed it. And I'll probably watch it again. Needless to say, my mother showed no interest in this movie whatsoever.
• Interstellar: another request from my Dad. We'd already seen it before. It's OK. But too long. And too clever.

After my parents were gone back home and I was feeling better, we also watched Our Little Sister, a gift from a friend. A wonderful Japanese movie. I'll have to tell you more about it in a separate post!