Hell

Following his Oscar-winning ‘No Man’s Land’ (2001), Tanovic makes a puzzling foray into baroque French melodrama. Krzysztof Piesiewicz’s script (from an idea for a trilogy he conceived a decade ago with Krzysztof Kieslowski) employs the well-worn three-sisters template: Béart endures her husband’s philanderings, Viard has the thankless task of caring for their invalid mother (Bouquet), Gillain carries on with a much older academic, and the three semi-estranged siblings are drawn together again by the arrival of a mysterious stranger. Po-faced and overdetermined, the movie trudges sullenly towards a would-be revelatory ending that lands with a dispiriting thud.