With a cast list that reads like a French diva hall-of-fame, you'd be forgiven for expecting some heavy drama from "8 Women". How wrong you'd be.

François Ozon has gone all-out on the retro front and created an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery-cum-musical, all with his tongue firmly placed in cheek - or should that be chic?

It's Christmas-time in a secluded country mansion and Marcel (Lamure), the only man of the house, lies stabbed to death on his bed.

Snowed in with the phone lines cut and a sabotaged car, the eight women in question are all suspects in the murder, and all suspect each other.

Marcel's wife Gaby (Deneuve) is arousing distrust for the amount of money she'll inherit on his death, but her two daughters (Ledoyen and Sagnier), sister (Huppert), mother (Darrieux), chambermaid (Béart), and housekeeper (Richard) are all also hiding guilty secrets.

Finally, thrown into the mix of potential murderesses is Marcel's sultry sister (Ardant), who's got her own ideas about the crime.

As if the mounting ridiculousness of each confession and revelation wasn't enough, each woman has her own song-and-dance routine through which to indulge herself and expound her character, with varying degrees of humour and emotion.

From its elegantly vintage set to the 50s-style Technicolor, "8 Women" oozes camp artifice as much as it does acting talent, with each woman sending up her public persona and revelling in the fabulousness of it all - a complete stylistic U-turn from Ozon's previous film, "Under the Sand".

Subtle it certainly isn't, but there's an underlying tenderness towards these fatal femmes and an upbeat humour that buoys "8 Women" and puts some oomph behind all the fluff.

Leave your sense of reason at the door and surrender yourself to the oo-la-laughs.

In French with English subtitles.