If a new cinematic trend is emerging in the noughties (other than Hollywood's ongoing preoccupation with live-action "re-imaginings" of cartoons), it has to be the postmodern murder mystery. A few weeks ago I reviewed Takashi Miike's "The Happiness of the Katakuris," a murder mystery send-up in which a four-generation family deals with the deaths that occur in their remote hotel by breaking into bizarre song-and-dance numbers every now and then. And now there's Francois Ozon's "Eight Women" (Huit femmes), a po-mo whodunnit in which eight interrelated women locked up in a large, secluded mansion relieve the tension created by the death of the one man in their midst by bursting into impromptu songs.

Hmmm.

Mind you, the above is where the similarities between the two films end. Although "Eight Women" shares the campiness that characterises "The Happiness of the Katakuris," the laughter is induced in a different way. Whereas in Miike's film, the fun derives mostly from the cheesiness of the songs and the grotesque transitions from live action to animation, the fun in "Eight Women" lies in the dialogue, which takes irony and bitchiness to previously unscaled heights, and in the body language of some of the actresses, particularly Isabelle Huppert. The songs featured (written by Krishna Levy and sung by the actresses themselves) are OK, but they are neither spectacular nor long enough to be memorable, and they certainly don't make "Eight Women" the next instalment in that other great trend of the moment, the musical. As far as the music is concerned, "Moulin Rouge" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" need not fear the rivalry of "Eight Women." Nor does "The Happiness of the Katakuris" or that Korean musical of which it is apparently a remake. However, as far as razor-sharp humour is concerned, this film is second to none.

As the title suggests, "Eight Women" is about, well, eight women. More specifically, it is about three generations of women who live with the husband of one of them, plus their two servants. When the story opens, a spoilt young lady called Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen) returns from a year abroad to find that little has changed in the family she left behind. Her mother (Catherine Deneuve) is still cold and aloof; her grandmother (Danielle Darrieux) is as dim as ever; her younger sister (Ludivine Sagnier) still wishes to prove that she is as wise and mature as Suzon; her maiden aunt (Isabelle Huppert) hasn't lost any of her bitterness; and the family servant (Firmine Richard) still fusses over her as if she were a princess. The only things that appear to have changed are the new maid (Emmanuelle Beart), who seems never to have heard the word "humility," and Suzon's father, who never leaves his room to celebrate his daughter's return to the fold. When the ladies finally go and check on him, they find him dead - murdered in his bed. Rather than grieve, the seven women (soon joined by the dead man's sister (Fanny Ardant), who has received a mysterious phone call informing her of her brother's demise) set out to find the murderer, who they are convinced is in their midst. As the story unfolds, they get increasingly bitchy and gossipy, and one by one, the skeletons come tumbling out of the cupboards in the shape of pregnancy, prostitution, illegitimacy, financial trouble, blackmail, homosexuality and brilliant orgasms. At the end of the day, all women are revealed to be horrible creatures (Ozon, a misogynist? Whatever gives you that idea?) and the viewer learns that "il n'y a pas d'amour heureux," although every other French film will try to convince you that there is.

Quelle journee.

"Eight Women" has been described as a twenty-first-century take on an Agatha Christie story or a po-mo version of "Gosford Park." These comparisons are apt in that "Eight Women" is a period whodunnit dealing (to some extent) with the relationship between master and servant and between relatives of different social status, in which the murder case is solved by one of the party rather than the police. However, the social drama isn't fleshed out here as it is in Altman's film or in Christie's detective stories. Far from an incisive peek into the workings of a class society or the human condition in general, "Eight Women" is a bitchfest which purports not to analyse but to shock and entertain. It features too little psychology to be satisfying as a murder mystery in its own right, but as a send-up it works quite well.

To a large extent, the success of Ozon's film can be attributed to the acting. With the exception of Ledoyen, whose Suzon is a thoroughly annoying creature, the all-star cast is on great form, visibly enjoying this rare opportunity to throw daggers at each other. Both Emmanuelle Beart and Fanny Ardant ooze glee at the bitchy lines they are given, especially in the second half of the film. The real star, however, is Isabelle Huppert, who follows her superbly understated performance in "The Piano Teacher" (La pianiste) with an equally impressive comic turn in "Eight Women." Forget the subtlety and cold, stoic exterior that marked Huppert's portrayal of Erika Kohut; as Augustine, she is a hysterical old maid who munches biscuits as if they were men and lifts her chin in a self-satisfied manner whenever she has done herself proud. It's a performance that is diametrically opposed to the one that earned her a best actress gong at the recent European Film Awards, but one which should win her just as many accolades.

Acting aside, a lot of fun is to be had with the structure of the film. Ozon makes no effort to hide the stage origins of his film; on the contrary, he positively flaunts them. Not content with merely observing the unities of time, place and action, he arranges his actresses in highly theatrical-looking tableaux, and even has them line up for a final bow to the audience when it is all over - an act carried off with so much aplomb that one is inclined to applaud. To increase the post-modern feeling of the thing, his heroines continually ask themselves what characters in a detective novel or a play would do in their situation, and to make it all just a bit more self-referential, the actresses actually comment on each other's performances: "Well played, that bit of melodrama."

As the above suggests, "Eight Women" is not so much a successor to the mature drama of Ozon's previous hit, "Under the Sand" (Sous le sable), as a return to the wicked fun of "Water Drops on Burning Rocks" (Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brulantes), with not just one song-and-dance number but six. It may not feature the incomparable Bernard Giraudeau, but with so many great actresses on show, not to mention Ozon's outrageous sense of irony, it is a film not to be missed.

Elaine