Like watching someone make the world's largest ball of string for years, and then they don't show you how it unraveled but instead tell you about it in five minutes.

This tribute to classic Hollywood thrillers of the 50s is all foreplay until the inauspicious climax that comes and is over all too quickly.

The story of a young duo who met and fall in love while seducing rich oldies is nicely filmed by Nicolas Bedos (OSS 117, La Belle Époque) and looks beautiful thanks to a bisexual's dream casting (Pierre Niney and Marine Vacth), but the layers of the story are laid on too thick.

The complex plot being explained away with a few cast off lines wreck the intrigue and the fully clothed sex scenes (seriously, if you insist on filming sex scenes then why insist on having everyone completely dressed?) destroy any eroticism in this erotic thriller.

Bottom line: Mascarade is fun to look at but difficult to watch.