FEMMES FATALES.("8 Women")

If you find yourself in need of a tonic in the coming weeks, and discover that a close friend has stolen your copy of "Singin' in the Rain," you could do worse than plan a trip to "8 Women." Francois Ozon's new picture is a tonic of sorts, but you should be warned that at no time does it taste anything other than most peculiar. Put simply, it is a cocktail: a hot-hued, postmodern, nineteen-fifties murder-mystery musical hen party. You may be left with doubts about Ozon as a director, but one thing is for sure: he'd make a hell of a bartender.

The setting is virginal and unashamedly fake--purest Agatha Christie. The hush of a snowbound country house, where deer ...