Claude Chabrol, always looking for fault in the bourgeoisie, noses into the closets and laundry hamper of a French provincial family composed of a septuagenarian Auntie (Suzanne Flon, gaining strength with age), a political-upstart stepmother (Nathalie Baye), a philandering pharmacist father (Bernard Le Coq), a prodigal son back from three years in Chicago (Benoît Magimel), and an incestuously inclined cousin (the killingly cute Mélanie Doutey). Despite the presence of Chabrol in the director's chair, despite the bloody corpse before the flashback, despite the occasional injection of heart-clutching Bernard Herrmann-esque music, despite the dark past and the clouded present (did Auntie murder her collaborationist father at the end of the Occupation? did the pharmacist himself author the anonymous smear of his wife?), and despite the flare-up of mustache-curling melodrama at the climax, this is not really a thriller. Or anyway, it is not really thrilling. It does, in time, recover from the talk-talk-talk of family genealogy, and piece together a full and rounded portrait of family life, giving generous attention to the representatives of each of the three generations. (A contemporary Hollywood film would naturally be inclined to favor the youngest.) You never can tell where the rewards may come. The movie's best sequence is the door-to-door stumping of the grassroots politician and her docile running mate (the director's son, Thomas Chabrol) in a government-subsidized housing project: tickling, not thrilling. (2003) — Duncan Shepherd
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