It's a story that may sound familiar to moviegoers, because the source material is a 1958 Robert Thomas play that was already filmed in 2002 by François Ozon. Thanks to the star parade with movie divas like Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart and Fanny Ardant, 8 Femmes became a blockbuster among French audiences twenty years ago.
This golden formula could also work well in Italian, director Alessandro Genovesi must have thought. And so, a cast of Italian stars (of which no one is known here) have been summoned to reshoot the play. Unlike Ozon's film, 7 plays Donne as a Misteroset in the 1930s and there are some elements that reference the #MeToo era. Unfortunately, it's not enough to let this Italian variant out of the shadow of the French classic, which is mainly due to the faulty script.
Director: Alessandro Genovesi
Writers: Alessandro Genovesi, Lisa Nur Sultan
Stars: Margherita Buy, Diana Del Bufalo, Sabrina Impacciatore
Some women are heading to a Christmas dinner in a spacious country house. The very rich Marcello wants to spend Christmas with his family from a distance, but the host's corpse puts a damper on the festive spirit. As the title makes clear, there are seven women, each of whom has a motive for Marcello's murder.
His wife Margherita has been unfaithful to him for years, his sister-in-law Agostina has been secretly in love with him since her teens, the greedy mother-in-law only cares about her drink and the ties under her mattress, there is a sexy maid for whom the man he had a keen eye, a sensual lover, and two daughters who only benefit from their father's death.
So all the ingredients are there for a thrilling whodunit in the best Agatha Christie tradition, but unfortunately nothing is done with it. There's some wrangling back and forth in Italian for about seventy minutes to build up to a fairly predictable and nonsensical plot, but that's about all 7 Donne e un Mistero has to offer.
It was predictable that the noisy and almost chaotic Italian approach would lose out to the French charm, but the biggest disappointment turns out to be that Alessandro Genovesi focuses too much on the sets, making it feel like you're being shown everything. a design museum. Anyone who likes feuding Italian checkers or can't get enough of gold-rimmed coffee cups will be able to get something out of this Italian gathering, but those who prefer quality are better off opting for the French variant.
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