Gorris's film is a volatile mixture of rousing feminist solidarity and indefensible violence. The main characters, strangers to each other, are average women, subject to an average amount of socially sanctioned misogyny. Together they cut, poke, and beat to death a male store clerk after he catches one of them shoplifting. Their fascinating histories are bluntly told through a series of interwoven flashbacks, testimonies, and tape recordings. The female psychologist assigned to their case gradually comes to the realization that the women are defiantly, horribly, undeniably sane. The viewer is led to accept the murder of an innocent man as a necessary ingredient of the film's poignant and viable political thrust. We are removed from the realm of the rational and explainable. We laugh maniacally along with the murderous culprits. The women, and we, are not insane, but sick: we are manifesting the grim symptoms of a socially inflicted disease.-Erika Katz