DVD Diabolique

The story is about two women, Mia and Nicole (Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani) who plan to kill a sadistic guy, Guy (Chazz Palminteri), who is the lover of Nicole and the husband of Mia. Mia owns a boarding school which she wants to keep and she wants to get rid of Guy and the only way of keeping it seems to be murdering Guy (divorce is not an option here). Without giving away anything, the women drown Guy in a bathtub, put him in the swimming pool of the school, but the corpse vanishes. From here on the story has many twists and turns till the shocking ending. The story also features Kathy Bates as a detective.

However, the movie falls flat many times as the pointless direction simply can't hold it in its shape. Jeremiah Chechik tried to concentrate on 'atmospheric settings' and film noir techniques. I'm sorry to tell you that they don't work. Instead of atmospheric settings we get cheap horror tricks. The director seems to concentrate on absolutely unimportant things and the otherwise tight script simply can't create suspense. Hadn't I seen it on TV I would have pushed FF many times. Instead of concentrating on 'art direction', Chechik should have concentrated on his characters.

The direction is a shame also because the story is great and the actors are good, too. I liked Sharon Stone as the stiff-upper-lip mistress and Isabelle Adjani was completely believable as the innocent yet enraged and persuaded wife. Sadly, Chazz Palminteri is miscast here and Kathy Bates doesn't deliver the somic relief she's supposed to bring.

All in all, it's not that bad, but the original works much better. So if there has to be a choice, you should choose the original. It's available now as a director's cut and though it's B&W and the subtitles are somewhat bad, it's a much better movie than this.

Especially effective in a satirical performance is Sharon Stone as Nicole Horner, a duplicitous siren teaching math at a boy's boarding school. (Just the thought conjures up visions of a vampish Mary Kay Letoureau, although director Jeremiah Chechik studiously avoids that angle.) Her partner in crime is French actress Isabelle Adjani who plays Mia Baran, an ex-nun who is the owner of the school unhappily married to (after being seduced by, it appears) the school's sadistic task master Guy Baran played with a steady macho malevolence by Chazz Palminteri. Adjani, whom I recall (vividly) from Truffaut's L'Histoire d'Adele H. (1975) in which she played Victor Hugo's daughter Adele, obsessively in love with an English army lieutenant who didn't want her. The masochistic persona employed there is revisited here as Mia is used by both her husband and Nicole Horner, who is also Guy's mistress.

Coming lately onto the scene is Kathy Bates as a man-despising, middle-aged, slightly butch Nancy Drew who doesn't let a partial mastectomy slow her down as she sleuths about looking for clues. She has some fine one-liners, but perhaps the best in the film comes from Sharon Stone. Two of the school's middle-aged bores have just come upon Stone and Adjani in the courtyard. Stone's ever-present cigarette inspires this from one of the men: "Don't you know that second-hand smoke kills?" Sharon Stone maneuvers past him, blows smoke in his face, and replies, "Not reliably."

This is a remake of Les Diaboliques (1955) starring Simone Signoret which I have not seen. My guess is that the French version played it straight and made the ending at least plausible. Here we have not only a ridiculous ending but a plot in dire need of a plot doctor. I have also not seen the TV version, Reflections of Murder, starring that quintessential sex-kitten (and personal favorite) Tuesday Weld.

Bottom line: see this for Isabelle Adjani, whose over the top performance is garnished with an au naturale glimpse, and for Sharon Stone who is at her diabolical best. Be aware however that if sexual exploitation of the male libido is not your cup of tea, you will not like this movie, and even if it is, you may find the story more than a bit silly.

One distinguishing feature of the glorious original was it's remarkable lack of any attempt at naturalism or realism. It is set in a vividly imagined a nightmare dreamworld of shadows and violent emotions This tries to be more naturalistic and convincing. Tries and fails as the writer's and director's idea of naturalistic and convincing is a useless hodgehodge of tired Hollywood clichés. If it has a saving grace it is Kathy Bates as the annoyingly persistent cop (in Clouzot's film an unmistakable template for Peter Falk's Columbo: changing the sex to escape from looking like a tame takeoff of that TV icon was almost the only sensible idea in the movie). And while Bates is a class enough act to rescue many a bad film, she cannot rescue this. Sharon Stone is on autopilot, sleepwalking her way through a reprise of her standard evil and conniving act from countless better (if generally pretty terrible) films. Isabelle Adjani as the wife is an illustration of the film's imaginative cowardice: the film is transposed to the contemporary USA but they make her a Catholic/European type presumably just from a misplaced hope that that will get them a bit of the magical atmosphere of the original. Dream on. The direction, writing, cinematography and, Bates aside, acting, is wooden and hopeless. Given the wonderful ideas for dramatic tension thrown up by Clouzot, it is almost preposterously lacking in suspense and about as scary as "The Waltons". Most depressing and cynical of all is the lamentable changes to the ending to make it a bit more feel-good, a bit less dark, and infinitely, sorry, stupider. It is as if, knowing they had a turkey on their hands the makers felt they could throw it to the focus groups without shame. It remains just close enough to the ending of the original to constitute a massive spoiler if you should ever see the latter (as you should go out of your way to do) and are unfortunate enough to encounter this first. So if you have not seen the original you have that reason, above all, to avoid this like the plague. And, even if you have seen the original, there are loads and loads and loads of other reasons. Life is just too short.