8 Women: Movie & DVD Review (2002)

(Originally published 2002)

Francois Ozon's "8 Women" tries to make George Cukor's 1939 catfight, "The Women," look like a quaint Sunday prayer meeting among the best of friends. While it doesn’t quite pull that off (what could?), it has a great time trying and, in the end, it stands as a worthy homage to the unforgettably bitchy mood Cukor created in his film.

Set in the 1950s, "8 Women" is a haughty, heavy-breathing melodrama based on Robert Thomas' play. It's so over-the-top, it almost knocks itself out.

The film begins with a rush of strings and trumpets from Krishna Levy's triumphantly purple score and a glimmering curtain of crystal beads shimmering in a soft pastel hue. Both ground the movie in camp while priming the viewer for what’s to come. Certainly, you hope, that whatever is lurking beyond that curtain will be just as festooned, bejeweled and grotesque as the curtain itself.

It is. Indeed, when the beads wink apart, they reveal a huge snowbound French country estate that, inside, is the sort of Technicolor dreamworld that could put a crease in Vincente Minnelli's pants.

What ensues feels like Robert Altman's "Gosford Park" as written by Agatha Christie on a nitrous oxide drip. The film has more bite and more histrionics than Altman’s film, but then it also has six full-length musical numbers performed by eight famous French actresses, all of whom play suspects in the murder of the estate's wealthy owner, a man found dead early on with a knife in his back.

Who did it? Take your pick. The film’s bevy of lusty, busty babes--Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Fanny Ardant, Isabelle Huppert, Firmine Richard, Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sagnier and Emmanuelle Beart—all could be the killer. But who has the true motive? And is the film ever really what it seems?

As it becomes clear that somebody here is more clever with the cutlery than she’s letting on, the film channels everyone from Jacques Demy to Douglas Sirk as these women work hard to root each other out. If the story sometimes strains against its seams--not unlike Deneuve in her dress--the cast is consistently strong, particularly Deneuve and Ardant, bravely throwing caution to the wind and mugging fearlessly in an all-out effort to bring down the house.

Grade: B