The Girl Cut In Two

It's been a long time since Claude Chabrol made a truly great film, and the wait continues. He's impressively prolific for a pensioner and his films are invariably well made and erudite - in this one, the characters quote at each other endlessly - yet they rarely leave much impression. To compound matters further, his latest has also succumbed to the French obsession with May-December romances i.e. attractive young women bafflingly finding men old enough to be their fathers totally irresistible. In fact, neither suitor to our heroine is particularly appealing. The elder is basically a heartless decadent womaniser (bizarrely tolerated and adored by his wife - only a man could have made this film) while the younger, although wealthy, is obviously deeply unstable . It all becomes rather tiresome rather quickly and then just when it seems it should end, it contrives to trundle along for yet another 20 minutes ...