A fussy Mousetrap

Would Agatha Christie have felt chez-elle in the old snow-covered country house, where the telephone lines have been cut, a body lies with a knife in the small of its back in a locked bedroom and everyone's got a motive? Maybe: but Francois Ozon's French extravaganza is no Souricere.

Instead of Mousetrap cheese, 8 Women offers a cheesy pastiche of detective cliches, campily done, filmed like some bright sitcom, with a pricy bouquet of France's iconic actresses whose names will be the main bait for audiences our side of the Channel.

In this family reunion, Danielle Darrieux is grumpy granny; Catherine Deneuve, svelte mama; Isabelle Huppert, a tetchy maiden aunt; Virginie Ledoyen and Ludivine Sagnier are sisters (poised and plain respectively); Emmanuelle Beart is the pert new maid, and Firmine Richard the old black housekeeper. Fanny Ardant shows up as the deceased's sister who was perhaps closer to him than his wife. Incest, pregnancy, adultery and bisexual kinkiness on the carpet all show up in the accusatory rounds of in-fighting that have the women leaving the aural equivalent of screeching tyre marks on the soundtrack.

The real novelty, however, comes every time an unseen orchestra starts up and, in turn, the cast burst into song and sometimes dance steps. It's a tuneful break from the sort of acting which suggests that inside each member of the household is a hysteric trying to break out. Forget the inbetween charade and you may enjoy the cabaret, particularly 85-year-old Mme Darrieux, as wrinkled as a walnut shell, but crooning: "Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux" like some rhapsodic immortal.

8 Women (8 Femmes)
Cert: 15