With Betty Fisher and Other Stories, writer-director Claude Miller follows the examples of Claude Chabrol and Pedro Almodóvar in adapting a Ruth Rendell novel to the screen. In this case the original novel, The Tree of Hands, has been translated seamlessly and stylishly to a Parisian setting. The plot interweaves a complexity of characters and stories, but the central thread concerns the eponymous Betty, a novelist whose young son dies while her disturbed mother Margot is staying with her. Margot, with terrifying directness, calmly abducts another child of similar age to replace the dead boy. From this loopy act there stems a whole series of consequences and side-effects involving a widening and socially diverse circle of people across the city.

Miller lucidly traces his way through the intricate story with cool, ironic humour and a sure touch for the different social milieus. Once or twice the plot strains credulity--bringing three major characters together by chance for the showdown at Charles de Gaulle airport is just a little too convenient--but most of the time the social and emotional cross-currents are deftly navigated. As Betty, Sandrine Kiberlain gives an almost painfully vulnerable performance, as if she lacks several layers of skin, while Nicole Garcia makes her mother Margot into a monster of overriding, self-pitying egomania. Their scenes together carry the weight of a whole lifetime of ill-suppressed mutual aversion. As with Rendell's novels, it's endlessly fascinating to watch these people, but you feel very glad you don’t know them. --Philip Kemp