Product: 8 Women (2002)
Rating: 5.0
Femme-tastic!
I love French films. I mean, in all honesty they are probably my favorite films. The whole 60's French New Wave movement contains some of the best films ever made, and the French style of filmmaking has always and will always intrigue me. `8 Femmes' is just another in a long line a marvelous French films.I think what makes `8 Femmes' so great is that is wholeheartedly embraces its camp value. It knows that it is preposterous and unrealistic and it doesn't try to be anything more or less. I vamps it up, delivering something that goes just far enough to be over-the-top but not obnoxious. It sums up everything that is so great about the French way of filmmaking; that carefree jovialness that elevates their films in my eyes.The film is an adaptation of a stage play written by Robert Thomas. It concerns eight women who find themselves trapped in a house with a corpse. That corpse happens to be the head of the house, Marcel. The women include Marcel's wife, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, two daughters, his sister, his maid and his housekeeper. All eight women, as it becomes very clear, had reason to kill him, but as the coincidences and accusations start popping up it becomes even clearing that none of them did.I mean, how could it be THAT obvious?The star of this show is the script, which is woven so effortlessly and exaggerated by such comical dialog. I love that the actresses really sink down into their respective roles and just give it their all. Everyone involved delivers here. Emmanuelle Beart is one of the most beautiful women in the world, and she uses her stunning exterior to create a mysterious nymph of a character. Firmine Richard is delightfully tense here, shattering that image of the maternal caretaker (her motives reek of selfishness). Fnny Ardant is the definition of a flirt, and while I didn't much care for her entrance (her big solo seems awkward) I loved the way she developed her character over the course of the film. Virginie Ledoyen and Ludivine Sagnier are pitch-perfect as the two daughters, every bit of difference between them yet every bit of natural similarities. Danielle Darrieux has that thankless role of `mother-in-law' but she is hysterical and more than makes up for it.But, the two stars here are none other than Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert. They are both extraordinary in their contrasting roles. Deneuve oozes sensuality as the wife, Gaby. She wears her lavish costumes with pride and a sense of entitlement that never budges from her shoulders. Huppert on the other hand, playing the prudish Augustine, wears her colorless frocks with a faux sense of strength that gives way to an obviously hidden shame. They compliment one another flawlessly, and Huppert's manic meltdowns are some of the films major highlights.In the end, this musical/murder mystery is every bit of `Clue' or even `Gosford Park' with a twist, a French twist; and those twists are always the best!