Enter Shirley, a male-bashing detective (Kathy Bates). This signals the big switch in Don Roos’s screenplay: it’s a feminist “Diabolique” for the ’90s. Make that pseudofeminist, with a clumsy use of breast cancer and timorous hints of lesbianism. Chechik lets a campy tone creep in, especially in Stone’s performance, all swinging shoulders and tough wisecracks, like Joan Crawford returned from wire-hanger hell. It’s sad to see the luminous Adjani as Mia, a former nun with heart trouble, being a wimp without a wimple. And Chechik blows the famous chilling climax. It’s as if he turned the “Psycho” shower scene into a Zest commercial.
