A runaway popular hit but not an award winner at this year's Berlin Film Festival, François Ozon's campy musical/soap opera/country-house murder mystery provides star turns for eight celebrated French actresses in a hilarious story that encompasses three generations and embraces incest. The time is the 1950s, and the setting is an isolated mansion in the snowy French countryside, where a family have gathered to celebrate the Christmas holidays. But then patriarch Marcel gets bumped off? Whodunit? Wife Gaby (Catherine Deneuve), who seems fonder of her bourgeois comforts than she is of her daughters or her husband? Gaby's mother (Danielle Darrieux), who's moved into her daughter's home? Gaby's repressed old-maid sister, Augustine (Isabelle Huppert)? Elder daughter Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen)? Younger daughter Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier)? Then there's Marcel's glamorous sister, Pierrette (Fanny Ardant), who shows up unexpectedly -- and don't overlook long-time housekeeper Mme. Chanel (Firmine Richard), or steamy new chambermaid Louise (Emmanuelle Béart).

You'll also want to ask yourself whether Marcel is really dead, since we barely get to see the body, and of course the house has been cut off by the snowstorm, so there's no doctor to confirm the death and no police to investigate it. Not that it's easy to focus on the murder mystery -- or the closetful of secrets that come out -- when the eight ladies keep singing and dancing their hearts out. You may not be edified by this lightweight effort, but only Scrooge or the Grinch wouldn't be entertained. In French with English subtitles. (104 minutes) At the Columbus.