Synopsis

The story revolves around a college student Michael (Dempsey) who goes to Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 for Christmas at the request of his college girlfriend Gabriella (Connelly), after months of her stonewalling him after she left college in mid-semester.

Michael starts the vacation full of hope and youthful enthusiasm because she has invited him to stay with her family. He arrives and is left waiting at the airport for hours. Gabi eventually arrives to pick him up and explains that sometimes they just don't answer their phone. He brushes off his frustration because he's happy to see her.

He gets to the house and meets the family. The father is in a towel, but will spend most of the rest of the film in the buff. He is writing a novel and can't write with clothes on. The mother is fiercely religious and a very strong, quiet woman. Two energetic, beautiful sisters meet Michael, along with a handyman Nick.

Unfortunately, over the course of the film, bad luck and the fickle female spirit continually thwart him. Gabi announces she no longer loves him as soon as he arrives at the house and they have time alone. Both her beautiful sisters independently attempt to seduce him (with the apparent complicity of Gabi). Gabi has a change of heart, and then again decides she doesn’t love him.

Gabi's grandmother (the matriarch of the family) is convinced Michael is her long-dead husband, who shares the name Michael. Granny is in a sort of nursing home–hospital from which she escapes after meeting Michael, as she thinks he has come back for her. So she goes to the country estate they shared. The girls and Nick, along with Michael, head out there frantically since it's the middle of winter, hoping she hasn't frozen in the cold. During their search on winter skiis, Michael falls and is unable to get up. He hears footsteps and it's Granny. Apparently, she helps him up and they go to the house. Michael lights a fire and gets Granny out of her cold, wet clothes. She then proceeds to talk to him, mostly about God, and this really engrosses Michael.

Near the end of the film, after the grandmother has died during Michael’s brief stay, Michael encounters her younger “ghost” at her grave and realizes he deeply loved this remarkable woman. As if they really did have a spiritual connection.

Ultimately, he returns home, touched by the entire experience, but always an outsider to the D’Arc family. We are left to assume he never sees Gabi again (as she did not return to college).

Cast

• Patrick Dempsey
  Patrick Dempsey
  Patrick Galen Dempsey is an American actor, known for his role as neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy. Prior to Grey's Anatomy he made several television appearances and was nominated for an Emmy Award...
  
   as Michael
• Jennifer Connelly
  Jennifer Connelly
  Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
  
   as Gabriella d'Arc
• Sheila Kelley
  Sheila Kelley (American actress)
  Sheila Kelley is an American television actress. She is best known for her roles as Gwen Taylor on L.A. Law and as Dr. Charlotte "Charley" Bennett Hayes on Sisters.-Early life:...
  
   as Irenka d'Arc
• Lance Edwards as Nick
• Lila Kedrova
  Lila Kedrova
  Lila Kedrova was a Russian-born French actress.-Biography:Kedrova claimed to have been born in 1918, in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Her parents were Russian opera singers. Lila Kedrova's brother was Nikolay Kedrov, Jr...
  
   as Granny
• Florinda Bolkan
  Florinda Bolkan
  Florinda Bolkan is a Brazilian actress, born Florinda Bulcão.-Biography:Daughter of a congressman and a granddaughter of a priest on her mother's side, Florinda lived in Fortaleza, the capital of Ceará state, and in Rio de Janeiro until she became a world citizen...
  
   as Mrs. d'Arc
• Andre Gregory
  Andre Gregory
  Andre William Gregory is an American theatre director, writer and actor.Gregory studied at Harvard University.During the 1960s and 1970s, Gregory directed a number of avant-garde productions developed through ensemble collaboration, the most famous of which was Alice In Wonderland , based on Lewis...
  
   as Mr. d'Arc
• Ashley Greenfield as Simone d'Arc
• Jean-Louis Millette
  Jean-Louis Millette
  Jean-Louis Millette was a French-speaking Quebec actor and writer.Millette's television career spans over thirty years: he was a cast member of many of the best-known series in Quebec, including the children's series La Ribouldingue , L'Héritage, Symphorien and Montréal P.Q. Jean-Louis Millette...
  
   as Father Walter
• Sanna Vraa as Young Granny