Ready to Wear

One of the world's finest film-makers, Robert Altman is also one of the most erratic, with an alarming tendency to aim his satirical barbs at easy targets. It's no surprise, then, that he should opt for this smug, unfocused, facile swipe at the follies of the fashion world. Much has been made of the authentic location shooting and the starry cast, but there's a world of difference between the carefully interwoven vignettes and deft portraiture of Nashville and Short Cuts and what passes for narrative and characterisation here. There's no story to speak of and no centre. Ironically, the only halfway decent moments involve the emotional sparring between journos Robbins and Roberts, and the gentle comic style of Mastroianni's furtive fugitive. Otherwise, it's a meaningless, meandering babble of broad grotesquerie.