TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

bnsw19 I am a great fan of Ozon and many of the fine actresses in this film but "8 Women" is worse than terrible. It's lazy, self-indulgent, insulting to the intelligence and, well, ultimately plain boring when not infuriating. Really, really, give this a miss and do something of value with your life (if it's only to do your hair and clip your toe-nails).

blanche-2 Francois Ozon directed this interesting and occasionally lighthearted film, "8 Women." It stars Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Ludivine Sagnier, Virginie Ledoyen, and Firmine Richard.The film takes place during a winter in 1950s France where a family congregates for the holidays. Unfortunately, Gaby's (Deneuve) husband is found dead with a knife in his back. Kind of killed the holiday spirit.Since the dogs didn't bark, it must have been someone known to the family. They can't go to the police; the phone line was cut and they are snowed in.As they try to figure out the identity of the murderer, we learn that each woman has a secret, which is revealed during the film. They all had motives. Could it have been Augustin, the dead man's sister-in-law, who lives with the family? How about his beautiful wife? His mother-in-law who is confined to a wheelchair? The chambermaid who, when she lets her hair down, is even more stunning? Or perhaps the housekeeper, loyal but hiding a powerful love? One of his two daughters? His own sister, who runs a brothel? The women discuss who inherits, and multiple motives for murder, and little by little, rivalries, tears, passions, infidelities, and musical numbers emerge.Ozon has given us a look into the female psyche, and he has employed some of France's great actresses to do it. The colors are bright, the women and clothing gorgeous.As someone pointed out, the French do not fear casting older women. Danielle Darrieux was 85 when she made this film; She is now 98 and did a film in 2010. Some French people live a very long time - I think it's the wine.Deneuve, 59 here, is stunning, very elegant and regal. Fanny Ardant as Pierette is gorgeous and sexy, displaying dry wit and disdain for convention. Emmanuelle Beart is the insubordinate, sexually adventurous (according to her) maid who transforms herself during the film, as does Augustin (Isabelle Huppert), the homely sister-in-law. Firmine Richard, a formidable black actress, does an impressive job with the role of Chanel, the housekeeper who finally reveals her secret.They are all so wonderful -- French women to my mind have a very earthy, worldly quality as well as sophistication. When one thinks of some American actresses in comparison, they seem like plain vanilla. It's a generalization, I know, and we do have some fine actresses, but I think the mindset of American show business is focused on youth and typecasting.This film is enjoyable because of the cast and the look of the movie. I can't say the music was fabulous or even fit this story. It was a touch of whimsy and the upbeat tunes were fun. There were some sad ones, too. C'est la vie.

Reichswasserleiche 8 (Huit) femmes reminded me of Clue very much and the quirkiness and oddness of Clue can be seen in this film as well. A stylized film with the clothes and furnished backgrounds, it is reminiscent of Kammerspielfilms because everything happens in one building. While I found this film to be cute, I really did not like it as a musical. I did like the musical numbers separately, but I felt like they didn't fit seamlessly into the film. When I least expected a song, someone was singing and it was so jarring that I was taken aback. The songs all reflected the character singing it, and out of all the songs, I found the song sung by Madame Chanel (Richard) to be the most poignant. Despite the film's cute exterior, I felt that the film had something to say about the role of women in various different situations.I was surprised to find out that Ozon wanted to remake Cukor's The Women but ended up making this film. I have no idea how successful Ozon's The Women would have been (the American remake flopped although I enjoyed it), but I thought that this film had many aspects that were similar to The Women.It was fun to see an older Catherine Deneuve and to hear her sing! I do believe that all of the actresses in the film sang their own songs and I would be highly disappointed if they didn't. I was upset to hear that Deneuve's singing voice was dubbed in Les parapluies de Cherbourg so when I watched this film, I thought, "Aha! Finally we get to hear Deneuve sing." I would put this film under the "dark comedy" section because of the mystery aspect and some of the things that happen throughout the film. If you like it the first time, I highly recommend that you watch it again; you'll find so many subtleties and foreshadows that all make sense when you know the ending. I recommend it to people who enjoy cute mysteries with a serious undertone beneath its light and cheery exterior.Film blog: http://sachlichkeit.net

B J Or, usually, the work would not stop there. Here it did.The renowned actresses try their best. I can't even say that the plot is bad because it could have worked (the two points I gave are to be derived from that). The problem was that the story just got lost and the movie became a parody of itself. It does not do well as a crime, comedy or musical movie in any manner. 1. Musical? You would need to be able to sing and dance for that to decent melodies. Forget it. I am a musical fan, believe me, this is not a musical in any respect. It is true that there are attempts at some screeching to music-like tunes but saying that there be singing and music is simply not true. 2. Comedy? In as much as this is ridiculous, yes. I also have to admit that I am not an admirer of the so called "French humor" (in case this phenomenon exists at all, anyone encountered it yet?), and could not recognize any comedic parts in here either. 3. Crime time line lost. As a result of the genre mix, the crime line that could have been doing well (I even venture to say that in the beginning, you do have suspense), fades away very soon.4. Lack of characters that are at least interesting. The female characters depicted are to the greatest extent unlikeable and unlikely.A good deal of the screening time tries to deal with the tangled interpersonal relationship of the eight women, but due to lack of time and artistic virtues on behalf of the director (oh yes, it is true, sorry), it just gets out of bounds and is incomprehensible and uninteresting. There is no likeness whatsoever to Agatha Christie's any works (except maybe the very early and lame Mary Westmacott love stories she started with). I do not know, why 8 Femmes has such an excellent rating at IMDb, I suppose it can be derived from the general respect for the cast members, but otherwise, this movie did not work for me, it did not work in any genre it attempted to form the part of, and is should not be legal to have such casts wasted all for nothing.