I have not read Ruth Rendell's novel, so I cannot judge this film as an adaption of a fictional work. On the other hand, I think the film fails primarily because Rendell's story doesn't work well in a French setting. If I'm reading the film correctly, I think that Rendell wanted to get at class distinctions as a central topos of the novel, and this theme would play out superbly in an English setting, where class differences are part and parcel of the social fabric. In Chabrol's film, such distinctions are so understated as to be lackluster, if not plain dull, a thematic failure that is only made the worse by characters who are lifeless and lacking in the telling character traits and hard-scrabble wisdom one expects of certain class types. Everyone in Chabrol's film is bourgeois, bourgeois, bourgeois, and therefore just plain boring. The acting is not so great and I felt that the casting decisions were flawed. Finally, Senta is a ridiculously deranged young woman (wouldn't you, too, hear the stylus skipping across the LP if someone said they loved you and that you were the person for whom they had been waiting forever, after one afternoon of sex?), so it's difficult to imagine anyone taking her very seriously. Let's not forget the absurdity of Senta's mother and the mother's lover, played by untrained dancers (it's very obvious) who spend their waking hours practicing the tango in awkward and clumsy moves. Why didn't Chabrol do something else with them other than film the pair practicing steps they can never hope to master? I would not recommend this film.
Review of The Bridesmaid
