So original, so funny, so alive with drama, intrigue, mystery and colors that you want to see it again and again.

The secret to enjoying 8 Women is to check your analytical mind at the popcorn counter and settle back for almost two hours of cinematic mischief.

Really, really good -- Yes, it's over the top, giddy and parodistic (God bless it). But it also takes a thoughtful, if surreptitious, look at what eight women might act like when men aren't around.

One of the most uplifting and delightful films to have come along this year.

If you simply love Vogue magazine, you'll love 8 Women just as much as the cinematically educated. This breezy entertainment often feels like an exquisitely photographed fashion layout come to life.

Whatever you call this one-of-a-kind bonbon spiked with wit and malice, it's classic oo-la-la.

It's pretty safe to say that claustrophobic, gay-themed murder mysteries haven't been this much fun since "Deathtrap."

The dazzling star power of the French screen royalty Ozon has assembled and the film's sheer exuberance in its own artifice make this a delight from beginning to end.

In short, this film is not quite the frozen and brittle comedy that it appears to be, and, if you can stomach it the first time, you may experience a baffling wish to see it again -- to inspect this crystalline curiosity from another angle. [16 September 2002, p. 106]

Seduction is more important than deduction in this chic display of star quality to the eighth power.

An ebullient toast to grande dames: part homage, part camp, all artifice and a thoroughly entertaining, if light, confection.

A frothy and deliriously enjoyable souffle.

Even if some of the references are inscrutable, a lot of 8 Women is a riot. Here and there Ozon finds the key to a level of farce that would have amused Bunuel himself.

May not plumb the depths of the female psyche, but it's stylish and frivolous in the most profound ways.