Grindingly awful, insultingly dire.

In the listings of my local arts cinema, Bluebeard was billed as an unconventional, witty, feminist reworking of the old folk tale. The only unconventional element that I can see is the poverty of skill involved in a film that is deemed fit for an audience of discerning viewers. It looks like an imbecile was given a camera and a pantomime dress-up box and allowed to run amok. There is little in the way of wit, however one may choose to define the word.

Is it a reworking? Hardly. There's the pointless addition of two 20th Century girls reading the Bluebeard story in an attic their mother has forbidden them to enter. It's a hamfisted and empty headed attempt at mirroring but it doesn't constitute an overhaul of the original tale. The two kids have a lot of natural charm, but it's inclusion feels like an accidental oversight on Breillat's part. As if to punish them for bringing something likeable to the film, one of them is required to fall through a trapdoor and is then seen sprawled in what looks like a puddle of ketchup.

As for feminist credentials, I can't think of many feminist films where the heroine is rescued by a man at the end.

There's absolutely no attention to detail. In a scene involving the father's cadaver, you can see the actor's chest rise and fall and his eyes flickering wildly. In another, a knife is drawn across someone's throat and the viewer can see a red line of fake blood behind the assailant's hand before the blade moves. When it does move, it's a good half a centimetre away from the wound. It doesn't look like either of those scenes is intentionally made false to serve as a metatextual filmic device. Like the rest of this glorified primary school play, they are just rapidly knocked-out products of a careless approach.

The amateurishness would be forgivable if the film was engaging and made some sort of comment beyond the stating of the obvious. Apparently, life is hard and choices are few if you're poor and female. It was even worse in them olden days. Jesus! Why did no-one tell me that before?

Miraculously, given the material they have to work with, Daphne Baiwir and Lola Creton turn in a brace of warm, convincing performances. They must be very fine actresses indeed. Dominique Thomas may or may not be a good actor. It's hard to tell as he is required to do nothing but glower and clump about.

After this punishing experience of her work, I'm left wondering why Breillat is trusted to make films and how they find a distributor and an audience.