Alias Betty

Three mothers, two children, a multitude of crimes: French director Claude Miller's adaptation of English novelist Ruth Rendell's The Tree of Hands, an intricate tale of guilt, grief and dark serendipity, is so deft it's hard not to gasp with delight as the plot's pieces slide into place and its machinery begins humming. Betty Fisher (Sandrine Kilberlaine), 27, survived a tumultuous childhood defined the whims and violent rages of her beautiful, unbalanced mother, Margot (Nicole Garcia). And though Betty's marriage to American poet Edouard (Stephane Freiss) dissolved bitterly over her desire for a child, cruel fate has recently cut her some slack. Betty adores...