Diabolique (1996)

Strong and Moving!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri) is the dean of an old school inherited by his wife, the teacher Mia Baran (Isabelle Adjani) that has heart disease. Guy is an abusive husband and has a love affair with his mistress Nicole Horner (Sharon Stone), who is a school teacher in the same school. One day, Nicole and Mia plot a scheme to murder Guy and Mia spikes his whiskey and he faints. Then Nicole and Mia drown him in the bathtub and dump his body in the swimming school. Then Nicole dumps her keys in the swimming pool expecting that the school janitor finds him when he drains the pool. However there is no body in the pool and Nicole and Mia believe that someone knows the truth. When the snoopy retired Detective Shirley Vogel (Kathy Bates) investigates the disappearance, Mia freaks out and is near to destroy their alibi. What might have happened to the body of Guy Baran?"Diabolique" is a poor and unnecessary American remake of a 1955 French classic directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The director Jeremiah S. Chechik succeeds not only in destroying the story and the atmosphere of the original film with clichés and a boring slow pace, but also in wasting a great cast with names such as Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri and Kathy Bates. Isabelle Adjani, for example, looks like a moron and not a fragile wife. The conclusion is a mess. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Diabolique"

The kind of needless remake (of the Henri-Georges Clouzot French classic) that gives all remakes a bad name. The wife & mistress of a nasty school headmaster plot to kill him. Director Jeremiah S. Chechik assembles a colorful cast then wastes them all. Isabelle Adjani is blank faced throughout & Sharon Stone's performance is embarrassingly bad. Stone, in a role played in the 1955 original by Simone Signoret is a lot like Signoret...if Signoret had zero talent and no charisma. Whatever sex appeal and moxie Stone built up via BASIC INSTINCT & CASINO is stripped away here. She's like a mannequin who smokes a lot of cigarettes. She's not helped by a lame-brained script that has her spout some very silly one-liners. In a role reportedly (and wisely) nixed by Jack Nicholson, Chazz Palminteri plays the headmaster. Kathy Bates is a cop on the case. This film's idea of character development is to reveal that Bates suffered from breast cancer! Spalding Gray & Shirely Knight are in it too. Sole highlight: some very good cinematography by Peter James, who shot several Bruce Beresford films including DRIVING MISS DAISY. Chechik, a talented director who'd previously helmed the under-rated BENNY & JOON and TALL TALES, saw his career evaporate shortly after working on this debacle and then on another dog, a movie version of the classic '60s TV show THE AVENGERS.

The classic French thriller Diabolique has a sturdy story, which is one reason why it is a target for remakes. The film was remade for American television twice - first as Reflections of Murder (featuring Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett and Sam Waterston) and later as House of Secrets (with Melissa Gilbert and Bruce Boxleitner). To be honest, both of those remakes are certainly interesting to watch, if lacking in the suspense and novelty of the original. Reflections is fairly faithful to its parent, while House of Secrets maintains the bare bones of the storyline and throws in a different setting and some elements of voodoo. If you have not seen the original, the enjoyment level of both those films will be elevated.The same cannot be said for the first dunderheaded attempt to cinematically remake the French classic for American audiences. Keeping the original name, story and setting would seem a step in the right direction, but the film fails due to some incredibly foolish choices.The action takes place at a private boys prep school overseen by the hateful Chazz Palminteri. In between stealing funds from the school, Palminteri enjoys subjecting wife Isabelle Adjani - who suffers from a weak heart - to assorted cruelties. In his spare time, he engages in S&M with ice queen blond teacher Sharon Stone. The two women - tired of his abuse - decide to murder him, drop his body in the disgustingly filthy school pool and make it appear that he drowned in a drunken accident. Naturally, nothing goes according to plan.The best thing about this film is probably the casting of Sharon Stone in the role made famous by French actress Simone Signoret. If anyone embodies some of the same cunning and sensuality of Signoret from the original in a modern actress, it would be Stone. Unfortunately, the screenplay and everything around her fails to support her in any way.The changes made to the screenplay are not improvements. While a remake need not be slavishly faithful to the original, it should not completely go off the beaten path the way that this film does, particularly in its finale. The shock twist ending of the original may no longer be fresh, but the shaggy dog pseudo-feminist tilt tacked on to this latest effort seems to come completely from left field and is a blatant misfire.If Stone was an inspired choice, the remainder of the cast is less so. Isabelle Adjani, looking puffy and listless, is completely underwhelming as the abused wife. At no point does she engage our sympathy and she often seems entirely too lacking in energy to be remotely terrified. This may well be the most laid-back "frightened" performance one has ever seen on celluloid.Kathy Bates shows up as a detective investigating Palmineri's disappearance and driving the women to distraction. Her performance is immensely enjoyable and she seems to be having a good time. As a cancer survivor, she gets to crack completely inappropriate jokes and attempts to lay the groundwork for the "we're all sisters under the skin" meme that creeps into the film's finale. Unfortunately, her character and performance belongs in a completely different (and one would argue better) film.And the casting of Chazz Palminteri as the abusive schoolmaster is a disaster. Palminteri, providing the same performance here as he does in his guise of the reliable Mafia hit man roles in which he specializes, is laughably miscast. As tough as he comes off, Adjani could arguably physically match him and Stone could step on him without blinking twice. Not only that, but we have to believe that there was something that attracted these two attractive women to him and kept them in his orbit when they could easily have moved on. Palminteri, resembling a large trout, and playing a man with the charisma of a barracuda, seems an impossible prospect for these women. We have to believe that one lovely woman would fall for him (much less two) and no gigantic leap of faith can make this happen.Director Jeremiah Chechik has absolutely no idea how to maintain suspense or an atmosphere of foreboding. The scene shifts are klutzy and obvious. The pacing is often laborious, which allows the viewer time to mull over the complexities of the plots and double-crosses played out before us and realize how absurd the entire scenario truly is - something that the original (as well as its TV remakes) never allowed the viewer time to contemplate. This material needs a skilled hand, but what is provided is a clumsy sledgehammer.The original is noted especially for its shock ending. This remake seems initially to be going for the same thing and then suddenly backtracks - with remorseless characters suddenly developing consciences and people conducting themselves in ways not previously indicated in their respective behavior. By the time all of the leads end up in a watery fight, one realizes what a foolish level to which the film has sunk. One is sternly advised to locate either the original French classic or one of its TV counterparts before descending to this entry.

Someone recently said "Hollywood hates originality". This is the unfortunate evidence. I can only guess that the few favorable reviews came from people who never experienced the original film or were just too lazy to watch a film in a foreign language. Clouzot's effort was magnificent way back in the '50's. This was just a sad attempt at some fast bucks with no talent in front of or behind the camera. In the original film, the background of the school was seedy and cheap, the characters were unattractive in general and the surroundings were oppressive. This "sanitized" version misses the original point entirely. There was little or no suspense and no "atmosphere" at all. What a stupid waste. Ditto the remake of "Rear Window" but that's another review again...Curtis Stotlar