The movie has some élan anyway, because these women working together are something to see. They giggle over the stagy exposition, treating it like choice, well-loved gossip.

It is excruciating: a combination of Beth Henley's insistently eccentric screenplay, Bruce Beresford's frenzied direction and the sight of three singular talents on an acting roller coaster with no one riding the brakes.

Beresford fails to generate sufficient chemistry to bind the performances. Occasional bursts of delicious tragic humour nevertheless make this a not unlikeable 'feminist' mood piece.

A dismal affair that reeks of pretentious self-importance.