"Joyeux Noel," or "Merry Christmas," tells the true story of a spontaneous truce during the first winter of World War I, when German, French and Scottish troops laid down their arms and spent Christmas singing carols, exchanging tobacco and whiskey, playing the odd game of soccer and otherwise briefly subverting the forces of war that inexorably raged above them.

Writer-director Christian Carion tells the story through three officers, whose duties -- military, filial, moral -- converge on Christmas eve, when they're faced with the radical decision to stop fighting. Lt. Audebert (Guillaume Canet) is under pressure from his father, a general, to keep up the family tradition; a Scottish chaplain named Palmer (Gary Lewis) grapples with Antigone-like questions regarding authority; and a German lieutenant, Horstmayer (Daniel Bruhl), eventually reveals his own painfully ironic reasons for seeking peace but finally fighting loyally for the Kaiser.

The first two-thirds of "Joyeux Noel" are strangely inert, as Carion establishes his characters and the historical context of the early days of the war, but the film ends with a moving and surprisingly sophisticated meditation on the definition of moral duty.

-- Ann Hornaday

Contains some war violence and a brief scene of sexuality and nudity. In English, French and German with subtitles.