Diabolique

By TODD MCCARTHY

Diabolique (Thriller -- Color) A Warner Bros. release of a James G. Robinson presentation of a Morgan Creek production in association with Marvin Worth Prods. and ABC Prods. Produced by Marvin Worth, Robinson. Executive producers, Gary Barber, Bill Todman Jr., Jerry Offsay, Chuck Binder. Co-producer, Gary Daigler. Directed by Jeremiah Chechik. Screenplay, Don Roos, based on the novel "Celle qui n'etait plus" by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejec, and Henri-Georges Clouzot's film "Les Diaboliques."
 
Nicole Horner ... Sharon Stone Mia Baran ... Isabelle Adjani Guy Baran ... Chazz Palminteri Shirley Vogel ... Kathy Bates Simon Veatch ... Spalding Gray Edie Danziger ... Shirley Knight Leo Kaztman ... Alan Garfield Erik Pretzer ... Adam Hann-Byrd Video Photographer
1 ... Donal Bellamy Ms. Vawze ... Diana Bellamy Lisa Campos ... Clea Lewis Video Photographer
2 ... Jeffrey Abrams Irv Danziger ...O'Neal Compton This "Diabolique" is a thoroughly misguided redressing of the classic 1955 French thriller. Surprisingly dull and suspenseless, given the inherent intrigue of the story, new outing coarsens every aspect of this tale of the wife and mistress of a cruel schoolmaster whose conspiracy to murder him triggers an unexpected aftermath. Presence of Oscar nominee Sharon Stone in a prototypically lethal role should ensure sharp initial biz and some lively results overseas, but B.O. falloff promises to be precipitous after word gets out.
 

Many viewers will remember Henri-Georges Clouzot's original, which starred Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot and Paul Meurisse and was one of the biggest French hits of the 1950s. Others may recall the first American remake, John Badham's well-regarded 1974 TV movie "Reflections of Murder," which featured Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett and Sam Waterston.

In fact, one would think that it would be fairly difficult to botch this nastily clever yarn, which serves up a thoroughly disenchanted view of human nature along with a central mystery that can be guessed at but can hardly help but pique the viewer's curiosity with its fantastic turn of events. Still, the filmmakers here have done a pretty good job of turning silk into a sow's ear, hammering every point and underlining every effect in a way that will give people new reason to fear what Hollywood will do when it remakes quality foreign films.

First 20 minutes or so are the worst. To the continuous accompaniment of threatening thunderstorms, Nicole (Stone) and Mia (Isabelle Adjani), mistress and wife, respectively, of brutal boys' school headmaster Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri), decide they've each had enough of his domineering and deceitful ways and agree to do him in. Luring him away on a holiday weekend, the literally weak-hearted Mia musters the nerve to poison her husband, whereupon the two women finish the job by drowning him in the bathtub.

Or so it would seem. Shortly after dumping the body in the filthy swimming pool on the grounds of the isolated boarding school, the women are aghast when the corpse turns up missing after the pool is drained. Is someone on to them? Is Guy really dead? Does each woman now have reason to suspect the other?

From Adjani's gratuitous opening nude scene and the overblown weather to the vulgarity of the dialogue and the sight of an old caretaker peeing in the pool, everything has been made cruder and more obvious than necessary. This, combined with the basic unbelievability of someone as glamorous and self-possessed as Stone's Nicole being stuck at this no-exit outpost with such an abusive lover, puts the picture squarely behind the eight-ball from the outset.

Structurally, Don Roos' script hews fairly closely to the original for about two-thirds of the way, up to and including the introduction of a local detective with time to kill. But rather than a grizzled old coot, the gumshoe this time is a disarmingly friendly but nosy woman (Kathy Bates) whose wisecracks about the results of her breast cancer surgery will certainly seem tasteless to some viewers.

The famous bathtub scene is present, although in amazingly unscary fashion -- it is hard to be sure if it's just due to poor camera placement or the fact that much more horrific things have appeared onscreen in recent years. From here on, however, the action takes a few new turns, none of them particularly plausible.

For the mass audience unfamiliar with the story, there may be enough interest built up by the complicity between these two aggrieved women -- one ice cold and fiercely determined, the other sensitive, religious and pliable -- to get the tale across. If so, however, it will be in spite of, rather than because of, the way it's told, which, in a sign of the times, spells everything out in neon where understatement and nuance would be much more effective and insinuating.

The one element that is underplayed is a suggested sexual relationship between the two women. This is indicated several times through touches and gestures, but the emotional dynamics are too vague for the Sapphic aspect to make sense within the context.

Director Jeremiah Chechik, best known for "Benny & Joon," has only skimmed the surface of his cast's talents. As the tough-talking siren of the boarding school world, Stone has never seemed more brittle, tense and forbidding. No doubt she could have found more down deep in this character, but the film isn't interested in exploring it. Her wardrobe also is ludicrous -- how often does someone teach math to pubescent boys while wearing a sleeveless black cocktail dress?

Adjani develops some mildly interesting wrinkles in her fainthearted character in the late going, but in general has been given free rein to indulge in predictable wide-eyed, open-mouthed hysteria. Palminteri's philanderer is a one-note brute, and Bates' sleuth putters around like a junior league Miss Marple. Supporting cast, including Spalding Gray and Allen Garfield as two wimpy teachers and Shirley Knight as a working-class acquaintance of Nicole's, seems adrift.

Pic was shot in the Pittsburgh area, and tech credits are smooth.

Camera (Technicolor), Peter James; editor, Carol Littleton; music, Randy Edelman; production design/second-unit director, Leslie Dilley; art direction, Dennis Bridges; set decoration, Michael Seirton; sound (Dolby), Dennis Maitland II; associate producer, Kirsten Welles; assistant director, K.C. Colwell. Reviewed at Directors Guild of America, L.A., March 14, 1996. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 107 min.