Diabolique (Wide Screen) > Reviews > Two women, one man, the combination can be murder

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Unmemorable
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Interesting story
Disadvantages:	Acting, direction

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I chose to publish this one today as it was aired on BBC1 last night.

I chose to watch this one because it had a sexy looking case; half of Sharon Stone's face merged with the face of Isabelle Adjani with Chazz Palminteri in the background. There is really nothing else on the cover other than the title and the tag line, "Two women. One man. The combination can be murder.", the rest is just black. With very little idea as to what the film was about from the front cover I decided the read the synopsis on the back and was instantly interested. I was a little hesitant though as I thought that films that you would think would be good are usually awful. Nevermind eh?! When I woke up in the middle of the night and there was nothing on tv I thought why not?! Can't lose anything.

The majority of this film is set in an American boarding school, I would like to say present day, but I suppose I have to say about ten years ago. The teachers and the pupils live in the school and this is clearly portrayed when the wife of the headmaster, who also teaches at the school, collapses in the bathroom, seen by a pupil who runs over to tell another teacher. It becomes clear that Mia Baran has a heart condition and needs to take regular medication, however her husband, Guy Baran, doesn't seem too bothered by her collapse, in fact he appears to be an atrocious husband. Luckily Nicole Horner, another teacher, is on the scene to save poor Mia.
Mia is a very softly spoken ex- nun who is more than aware, as are all the pupils and teachers within the school, that Nicole has been sleeping with her husband. Both women are well and truly fed up with the ghastly headmaster and so Mia leaves him, as the school was left to her, there is much at stake if the two divorce. Mia goes to stay at Nicole's house off campus, Guy comes to visit Mia, who has prepared a bottle of spiked whiskey. After some arguing and a bit of a scuffle Guy passes out and Nicole returns to finish the job. The women plan to drown Guy in Nicole's bath, but as they try to he wakes up and nearly overpowers them, luckily Mia brings a large bottle of water which they use to weigh him down.
Mia and Nicole bundle what they think to be the dead body of their lover, along with the shower curtain which was hanging over the bath, into a large wicker trunk. The women carry this trunk out to the car but Mia begins to panic when a burley neighbour helps the women load the trunk into a car. They then pick up Guy's car and decide to take the body to school but on the way Nicole gets a flat tyre, the police are on scene to help but are intrigued by the trunk. Together the women dump the body in the school swimming pool which hasn't been used for years and life goes back to normal.
After a few days the body still hasn't surfaced and Mia begins to panic, Nicole throws some keys into the pool, which then has to be drained. Things take a turn for the worse when the pool is empty and still no body can be found. Mia begins to lose the plot while Nicole tries to hold things together and carry on as though Guy is missing. When Mia sees an article in the paper that a man was found drowned a few miles away she is eager to investigate, it turns out it wasn't Guy at all. While she is in the small town she meets a private investigator who persuades Mia to let her help find Guy, obviously she can't say no, she is supposedly a distraught wife.
Photos of the murderous pair hauling the trunk from Nicole's house arrive at the school. It seems that someone knows, this sends Mia round the twist. Things go from bad to worse when people begin to see Guy and then a young girl arrives at the school requesting payment for an abortion Guy had promised her. Mia knew that there was more women though Nicole didn't appear to, but what other secrets have been kept? And what on earth has happened to the body?

There is a strange theme that runs through this movie, which is smoking. This may sound really strange, but those who smoke within the film appear to be the baddies. Nicole smokes throughout the film and we believe that the murder of guy was her idea, correct me if I'm wrong but that's bad! There is a scene where Nicole offers Mia a cigarette but she refuses, as she is the sweet, innocent, vulnerable party. The detective tells Nicole that she has given up smoking, this makes sense law enforcement officers are good. However, after witnessing some violence she does nothing and then has a cigarette, naughty, naughty. I think this is rather strange theme to run through a film like this but it is definitely there.

Sharon Stone ... Nicole Horner
Isabelle Adjani ... Mia Baran
Chazz Palminteri ... Guy Baran
Kathy Bates ... Det. Shirley Vogel

"It's not your fault - it's *men*. Testosterone. They should put it in bombs."

The acting in this film is really pretty poor, without a doubt the most believable character is the bitter, twisted and over suspicious detective, Kathy Bates. The other three main characters are utterly hopeless, Sharon Stone is very over the top which makes her character had to believe in. Isabelle Adjani pulls off the vulnerable wife type scenes but when it comes to any action i.e. when the pair are killing Guy she doesn't seem to know what to do with herself, she simply looks lost. As for Chazz Palinteri, he accomplishes all his scenes and you can sort of accept his character but there seems to be a number of uncertain moments. He cannot play a wounded man very well at all and as this is his main role he becomes quite a let down.

Director - Jeremiah S. Chechik
Just to give you an idea of exactly how bad this director is, his only other accomplishments are National Lampoons Christmas Vacation and The Avengers. The direction of The Avengers was so bad it was nominated for Worst Director at the 1998 Golden Raspberry Awards. He now works for Diney directing J.O.N.A.S?!

Writers
Pierre Boileau (novel)
Thomas Narcejac (novel)
Henri-Georges Clouzot (screenplay "Les Diaboliques")
Don Roos (screenplay)

Production
Gary Barber .... executive producer
Chuck Binder .... executive producer
Gary Daigler .... co-producer
Jerry Offsay .... executive producer
James G. Robinson .... producer
Bill Todman Jr. .... executive producer
Kirsten W. Welles .... associate producer
Marvin Worth .... producer

The music in this film is intended to be quite spooky I think but mostly just seems weird. There isn't really one soundtrack it is just notes here and there. Randy Edelman and Jerry Sweet are responsible for this oddity. Apparently the soundtrack is "In The Arms Of Love", written by Marco Marinageli and Frank P. Maddlone and performed by Sherry Williams.

This film won an award in 1997 an Australian Award of Distinction in the Feature Cinema Productions category. Sharon Stone was also nominated for the a Razzie Award in 1997, for the Worst New Star.

Released in the UK on 6 September 1996

This is an 18 certificate
I think this is reasonable as the main themes of the film are sex and death.

Run time - 107 minutes
This is a really good length film, it doesn't drag. The pace is good throughout and by the end you feel the entire story has been covered.

DVD Extras
The DVD menu consists of;
1. Play movie
2. Scene Selection - there are thirty scenes in this film
3. Behind the Scenes Featurette - this sees the stars talk about their characters, the director, the plot. We also hear a little from the production team. This is all interspersed with scenes from the film. This is really just a pathetic attempt to advertise the film further with everyone saying how great the story is, how great everyone else is and of course how great the film is. My favourite quote from this addition is Sharon Stone saying "This film really goes beyond the genre", what does that even mean?
4. There is then Theatrical trailer, which is the same as the last one just without all the people talking about how great the film is. This is the same trailer that can be viewed online
5. Languages- there are a choice of spoken languages English, French or Italian. Then a number of subtitle languages including German, Dutch and English for the hearing impaired. There is also another screen off of this menu option which gives credit to those who designed the menu, I think this is a pretty strange idea.
There are also two websites shown
www.morgancreek.com
www.warnervideo.com

Available from
play.com price £4.99
hmv.co.uk price £4.99
eBay.co.uk prices from 99p

To view the trailer
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116095/trailers-screenplay-E10376-10- 2

For more info
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116095/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di abolique_%281996_film%29

This is a remake of a 1955 French film entitled Les Diaboliques which was renamed Diabolique for the American release. I have never seen the original so I cannot really comment, however the original won awards for the best foreign film. Obviously making it American didn't agree with this one.

In some respects I did quite enjoy this film. I think that the plot was good, but unfortunately this was severely weakened by some low rate actors, if you could really call them that, and some even worse direction. Although this film is now over ten years old I don't really think that this is any excuse having watched far older films which are far more potent. Even at the time of release I'm sure this one should have been straight to VHS material, I seriously can't imagine it being much better in the cinema, probably just more annoying.
This film is really about sex and death and to be honest it is all portrayed as in quite a sleazy way. If you think this is your cup of tea, go and get the DVD, but to be honest I don't think that this would be to many people's test. This may be mostly because of the films that are about now, but why go backwards, to something which is clearly worse?
I think this is the sort of film you could watch once, on late night BBC1, but as you start to analyse aspects of the film or really watch it in minute detail it just gets worse and worse. So, to sum up if you ever see it just starting on TV then give it a go, but I wouldn't recommend the DVD as I really doubt that this is a film many people could watch again and again.

Hope to have helped

©Expired-Account

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