Claude Chabrol is seldom more elegant as a stylist than when he’s working with familiar elements, and this 2000 movie has a slew of them: dysfunctional families (this one has two); Isabelle Huppert as a perverse individual smoldering under an appearance of placid normality; scenic settings (in this case Lausanne, in the French part of Switzerland); and the plot of an American thriller transposed to the French bourgeoisie (adapted from Charlotte Armstrong’s novel The Chocolate Cobweb by Chabrol and Caroline Eliacheff, a child psychiatrist who also helped write The Ceremony). New elements include actor Jacques Dutronc, a fair amount of classical music (two of the main characters are pianists), and, unfortunately, a conclusion stuffed with so many improbabilities that it left me gaping in disbelief. Prior to that, this is pretty much fun. In French with subtitles. 99 min. (JR)