By Patrick Jackson BBC News Online

The entire female ensemble cast of 8 Women is competing en bloc for best European actress at the European Film Awards 2002, which take place in Rome on 7 December.

This is a film to put the "femme fatale" back into France - a loving tribute to that country's much-vaunted special relationship with womankind.

It is a musical whodunnit which ends on a deliciously black joke but you could almost dispense with the plot and just sit back and relish the acting.

The magnificent eight

Danielle Darrieux Catherine Deneuve Fanny Ardant Isabelle Huppert Firmine Richard Emmanuelle Beart Virginie Ledoyen Ludivine Sagnier

The eight female stars include some of cinema's best-known faces and bridge the generations back to the days of Truffaut and Bunuel.

Set in a snow-bound country house in gorgeous late 1950s costume, director Francois Ozon's confection makes for the perfect Christmas film.

Eight disparate women are suddenly all plunged under equal suspicion of stabbing the master of the house - the man who brought their lives together in the first place.

As fingers point, one skeleton after another clatters out of the cupboard, the bones stacking up to rival the snow-drifts outside.

Try to think of a family's worst nightmares and Ozon beats you to it on screen.

Ludivine Sagnier and Virginie Ledoyen play sisters

But so much for dark secrets - the chances are you will come away from 8 Women wanting to dress up and party.

Centimes from heaven

The swirling original score for the film is worthy of Hitchcock but, like a Dennis Potter TV drama, the film is punctuated by songs, performed in turn by the actual actresses.

They range from infectious bursts of rock and roll by Ludivine Sagnier, the baby among the eight, and her troubled elder sister Virginie Ledoyen through to a plaintive ballad by Danielle Darrieux, who has been in films as far back as 1931.

As the songs draw out the characters' personalities, so do the symbolic flowers which frame them in the credits.

There is a sunflower for the oversize and overlooked Firmine Richard and orchids for the blonde lioness Catherine Deneuve and her up-and-coming rival Emmanuelle B�art.

Isabelle Huppert may surprise some with her performance

Catwalk

The focus of the awards may be on the actresses, but much credit should be given to costume designer Pascaline Chavanne.

Fanny Ardant's crimson buttoned-down two-piece, for one thing, matches her vamping character like exquisite Christmas wrapping-paper.

Apart from 8 Women's own merits, the tributes to other films are a Cluedo-esque treat for seasoned film-goers while the ubiquitous Isabelle Huppert appears here as you may have never seen her before.

France is a country where graffiti-artists decorate walls with the names of their favourite actresses and the eight stars of Ozon's film do not disappoint - the tension between Ardant and Deneuve in particular is electric.

If they are pipped at the post in their collective bid for Best Actress then at least they appear to have had a thoroughly good time playing together - a pleasure in which the viewer can equally share.

8 Women is released in the UK on Friday.