Watch 8 Women For Free

A Masterpiece!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Blistering performances.

I am a great fan of Ozon and many of the fine actresses in this film but "8 Women" is worse than terrible. It's lazy, self-indulgent, insulting to the intelligence and, well, ultimately plain boring when not infuriating. Really, really, give this a miss and do something of value with your life (if it's only to do your hair and clip your toe-nails).

There are few films that make you go through the entire gamut of emotions like 8 Women does. The movie deals with the murder of the only man of the household and the corresponding baton passing of allegations and suspicions that the 8 women of the family go through. Suspecting the killer to be one among them, they are all mistrustful of each other, and with each more eager than the other to get to the bottom, all sorts of hidden dirty linen comes forth. There are song and dance sequences distributed throughout the length each devoted to one lady. The movie leaves a lasting impression with the measured acting and direction that is imprinted in every frame. While the cast, all bring in superb performances that keeps you riveted, Fanny Ardant as Pierrette, the murdered man's sister is especially spectacular. Every movement of hers is a lesson in grace and she captures and makes her own every scene she is in. The songs are impressionable to say the least. Each is either intense or pure fun, the writing uniformly deep, and a school of thought in itself. While each revelation in the plot is more condemnable than the last, even the frequent twists and turns don't leave you tired because the serious nature of the film is disguised in a fresh and lively veneer. You find yourself both hating and caring for the characters as the secrets rush forth. There are some which could have been easily avoided especially the one that is disclosed in a sheepish manner in the conversation between the two young sisters. The sadness permeating in the film is reflective of the pensiveness of both the French film industry and the society in general, both of which seem to regard existence as an oner-some chore to go through rather than a joy, both achievable and desirable. Despite these flaws, I would give a big thumbs up to 8 women. Reserve your judgments and enjoy pure cinematic brilliance.

An amazing cast. Deneuve, Ardant, Huppert, Beart are some of my favorite actresses from my days of braving wind and snow to sit in old smelly repertory theaters to watch classic (and not so classic) French films.I think that one has to think of this a playful farce, more along the lines of "Clue" than "Murder on the Orient Express". Everyone is having fun with the mystery but abiding by the rules - the ending is in fact consistent with the events and the clues and actually better than many mystery endings that I've seen. The addition of a musical number for each of the ladies is inspired and again is not meant to be serious as in "Singing in the rain" but more like "Pennies from heaven" or "Everyone says I love you" where it is more of a homage to the musical. For me it works very well and the actresses are surprisingly good singers.The entire atmosphere was that of poking fun at some of the themes that crop up in mysteries (incest, homosexuality), in a hammy theatre-sports karaoke kind of way. I especially loved the scene between Deneuve and Ardant (though I initially thought it was going to be Beart rolling on the floor). Anyway, I found myself enjoying it as much as the actors apparently did..

Or, usually, the work would not stop there. Here it did.The renowned actresses try their best. I can't even say that the plot is bad because it could have worked (the two points I gave are to be derived from that). The problem was that the story just got lost and the movie became a parody of itself. It does not do well as a crime, comedy or musical movie in any manner. 1. Musical? You would need to be able to sing and dance for that to decent melodies. Forget it. I am a musical fan, believe me, this is not a musical in any respect. It is true that there are attempts at some screeching to music-like tunes but saying that there be singing and music is simply not true. 2. Comedy? In as much as this is ridiculous, yes. I also have to admit that I am not an admirer of the so called "French humor" (in case this phenomenon exists at all, anyone encountered it yet?), and could not recognize any comedic parts in here either. 3. Crime time line lost. As a result of the genre mix, the crime line that could have been doing well (I even venture to say that in the beginning, you do have suspense), fades away very soon.4. Lack of characters that are at least interesting. The female characters depicted are to the greatest extent unlikeable and unlikely.A good deal of the screening time tries to deal with the tangled interpersonal relationship of the eight women, but due to lack of time and artistic virtues on behalf of the director (oh yes, it is true, sorry), it just gets out of bounds and is incomprehensible and uninteresting. There is no likeness whatsoever to Agatha Christie's any works (except maybe the very early and lame Mary Westmacott love stories she started with). I do not know, why 8 Femmes has such an excellent rating at IMDb, I suppose it can be derived from the general respect for the cast members, but otherwise, this movie did not work for me, it did not work in any genre it attempted to form the part of, and is should not be legal to have such casts wasted all for nothing.