Kinky Drawing Room Mystery

8 WOMEN (8 Femmes) is a movie version of what was obviously a stage play (written by Robert Thomas at least 45 years ago). Some stage plays transported to the screen have added some new locations or crowd scenes, but not this. As you watch it you are keenly aware that, although some conversations take place in other rooms, the whole thing could have taken place in one room.

Here's the premise, it's a day or two before Christmas at the big rural estate and young Suzanne (Virginie Ledoyen) is home from college. She is greeted by her grandmother (Danielle Darrieux), her kid sister Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier - actually 21 years old when this was filmed), the housemaid Chanel (Firmine Richard), her mother Gabie (Catherine Deneuve - you should look as good when you're 58), her spinster aunt Augustine (Isabelle Huppert - forget Star Wars, it's a really special effect to make her look dowdy), and the new housemaid Louise (Emmanuelle Beart - yeah, she fits the part!). Daddy should be down shortly to greet Suzanne ... except it turns out he's been murdered in his bed. Just then, Daddy's estranged (and wayward) sister Pierrette (Fanny Ardant) knocks at the door, she hitched a ride to the estate because she got this mysterious phone call. Once they're all together it is discovered that the phone line has been cut, the car has been sabotaged, the gate has been padlocked, and the door to Daddy's room is locked and the key's vanished.

One more thing, the dog didn't bark in the night.

OK, so we've got one of those old fashioned drawing room murder mysteries, like they loved in the first half of the 20th century. Someone among the 8 is a murderer, but who? Bit by bit everyone is forced to reveal some dreadful secret. Everyone seems to have a motive. And, eventually, everyone sings a song; yes, for no particular reason, there is band music and spotlights and choreography and one of the character bursts into song (and they do their own singing).

This is a very good film if you can adjust to a mystery that has comedic and musical passages. Showing its stage origins, every clue comes out in the spoken dialogue, not from the photography or props, and the technology is strictly circa 1955 - no cell phones, no gay rights, no legalized abortion, etc. This is not exactly Hitchcock. I had mentioned Isabelle Huppert's dressing down as a special effect, another - but the stage crew cannot take credit for it - is seen when Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant get into a cat fight (you'll see). And Emmanuelle Beart shows us how those little French maid outfits are put together.

Not for kids. But the entire soundtrack is French with subtitles, so this is especially good for any of your friends who are French or deaf.