Writer/director Christian Carion's First World War drama is a touching seasonal tale of camaraderie and common sense in the midst of carnage and military madness. Carion bases his story on the now legendary ceasefire of Christmas 1914, when frontline French, German and Scottish troops spontaneously fraternised in the no man's land between their trenches, sang carols and played football. Here, the catalyst for this brief respite from hostilities is German opera singer Nikolaus Sprink (Benno Fürmann), who gives a rendition of Silent Night for his visiting girlfriend (Diane Kruger). The film boasts glossy production values, and there's some decent stiff-upper-lip acting from an international cast (including Gary Lewis and Ian Richardson), the members of which are generally allowed to speak their own languages. But some may feel that Carion is guilty of ladling on the sentimentality, particularly in the latter stages.

France, 1914, during World War I. On Christmas Eve, an extraordinary event takes place in the bloody no man's land that the French and the Scots dispute with the Germans…