In translating director Rainer Werner Fassbinders first full-length play to the screen, Francois Ozon has not only managed to highlight his obsessions with gay politics and the tyranny of bourgeois mediocrity, but has also succeeded in reproducing such trademark stylistic traits as the garish décor and the glut of glass and reflective surfaces.
Confining the action to a single set, Ozon exploits his characters for his own tragicomic ends. But theres still room for the cast to express itself, with Giraudeau particularly impressive as Leopold, the bisexual fiftysomething who juggles cynically manipulative relationships with a petulant youth (Zidi), his gauche fiancée (Sagnier) and his own transsexual ex-wife (Thomson). Bitter, astute and uncomfortably funny.