Betty Fisher and Other Stories (2001)

Director

• Claude Miller

Starring

• Sandrine Kiberlain
• Nicole Garcia
• Mathilde Seigner
• Edouard Baer
• Stephane Freiss

Last On

01:40-03:15 Mon 19th Jan 2009 95m
BBC2

Synopsis

This adaptation of the Ruth Rendell novel The Tree of Hands - previously filmed in 1988 under that title - is an intriguing combination of psychological chic, lowlife graft and bourgeois irony. But unless you can accept a world in which bestselling authors accept kidnap victims as substitutes for deceased sons, abusive mothers twist reality for their own devices and conmen are left mansions by erstwhile lovers, you will spend the entire film finding holes in its tortuous logic. If, however, you surrender to the spirited performances (especially from Nicole Garcia as the unhinged mother who abducts a child for her bereaved daughter) and director Claude Miller's arch manipulations, the kooky atmosphere and unlikely contrivances will keep you interested.