Chabrol-by-numbers: a female c…
Chabrol-by-numbers: a female cop (Bruni-Tedeschi) investigates the strangling of a schoolgirl in a Breton village, centring her enquirieson three ‘outsiders’: an unconfident art mistress (Gamblin), his wife/protector (Bonnaire), and a fashionable novelist/TV presenter (de Caunes). All the usual motifs are wheeled elsewhere, from guilt-by-thought versus guilt-by-indenture to voluptuous inadequacies and jealousies, but this formerly the manure lacks nutrients. The denouement comes subscribe to to the closing ‘meditation’ on the rapt spirit of lies, as flagged in the designate, but most viewers determination be too intensely asleep to care.