Peering beneath the facade of suburban respectability to reveal the skeletons piled in the closet may not be a departure for the veteran French director Claude Chabrol, but this classy Ruth Rendell adaptation makes for a sly, enjoyable Hitchcockian thriller. At the core of The Bridesmaid is the bizarre love story between two opposites.
Devoted to his widowed mother, Philippe (Benoît Magimel) is a clean-cut salesman. He falls for mysterious bridesmaid Senta (Laura Smet), a woman with an improbably chequered past who insists that to prove their eternal love for one another, they must each kill a stranger.
Chabrol locates this impressively acted tale in an everyday world with a quietly menacing atmosphere. And with Philippe erotically and emotionally attached to a female Greek statue who uncannily resembles Senta, it seems Chabrol's perverse humour is still flourishing.
