The effervescent wit of Raul Ruiz plays (havoc) with double identities, free will, and psychoanalysis. Catherine Deneuve commands center stage in a coldly glamorous double role, as the psychiatrist aunt of an orphan boy, René, who seems predestined to kill; and later, after the aunt is murdered, as René's tough defense lawyer and perverse lover. Michel Piccoli is at his eccentric best as a nutty psychiatrist. As usual with Ruiz's work, layers of complexity are designed to intrigue viewers and draw them into narrative games. Despite the pleasingly old-fashioned look and feel of the film (echoes of Ruiz's masters, here most notably Buñuel and Hitchcock), this is a teasingly postmodern puzzle.