The Mad Women’s Ball

Directed by Mélanie Laurent, The Mad Women’s Ball follows a late-19th-century woman (Lou de Laâge’s Eugénie Cléry) as she’s committed to a neurological clinic after displaying independent, risque behavior and a continuing instistence that she can speak to spirits. It’s exceedingly (and egregiously) familiar material that’s employed to progressively underwhelming and flat-out intolerable effect by Laurent, as the filmmaker, armed with a script written with Chris Deslandes, delivers a sluggish and disastrously overlong drama that contains few, if any, elements designed to capture and sustain the viewer’s interest – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by a midsection that couldn’t possibly be less compelling or engaging (ie it’s all just so stale and by the numbers). And although the picture boasts several impressive performances and Laurent does an effective job of establishing the movie’s primary locale, The Mad Women’s Ball‘s complete paucity of entertaining attributes ensures that the picture’s few positives are essentially (and thoroughly) rendered moot as the narrative crawls towards its endless, anticlimactic finale – with the end result a misbegotten effort and rare misfire from an otherwise solid filmmaker.

* out of ****