Director: Nicolas Pleskof
Starring: Alice Pol, Eddy Mitchell, Miou-Miou, Pablo Pauly, Gustave Kervern, Sarah Stern, Pascal Arbillot, Zabou Breitman
Distributor: Pivot Pictures
Runtime: 103 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

| |

Rating notes: Mature themes

Jeanne, a repressed architect visits a mansion she is renovating and discovers a family who has a tradition of making board games – and discovers she is in the middle of one.

For those who are played board games, who have enjoyed Cluedo, playing the game, watching on television and in film, this is that kind of film. It would be a mistake, of course, to look at this story in realistic terms. It is actually the visualising of a board game, the characters ciphers, representing attitudes, odd behaviours.

We are introduced to a rather sullen architect, Jeanne (Pol) who is designing a reconstruction of the interiors of the mansion owned by a tycoon who has been, with his family, the producer of boardgames for decades. She is introduced to the owner, his wife and little boy, his sister who is a co-manager, his daughter who seems to have psychiatric problems, his very cheery son and an eccentric butler.

The tycoon does not seem pleased with the architect’s plan and before she is quite aware of it, she becomes involved in living out a special game. And, of course, there are some deaths. There are games within games, threats of deaths to those who refuse to participate, bizarre activities, some dangerous, which would also lead to deaths. Everybody participates, even the little boy.

However, the architect is curious, even though she is trapped in the game and does not understand why – and starts investigating under the house, corridors and basement.

So, the audience spends quite a bit of the time trying to work out whodunnit! But, the solution is not at all what we might have been expecting (even though there have been references to Agatha Christie and Mary Higgins Clark).

In fact, the solution takes us off at something of a tangent but is meant to be a solution that will give the architect a new lease of life. Just as the board game is a pastime for the players, so Murder Party is a pastime movie for its audience.