By Nigel Powlson

FRENCH New Wave founder Claude Chabrol is still churning out films as he approaches his 80th birthday and shows here that his deft touch hasn't deserted him.

Although The Girl Cut in Two is far from his best work, it's so utterly French and so typically Chabrol that it's bound to please.

Francois Berleand plays an ageing novelist and serial womaniser whose best work is several decades behind him. He's indulged by both his wife and editor (who casts seductive glances in his direction at every turn).

But Berleand's philandering has now taken him in the direction of a TV weathergirl (Ludivine Sagnier) who he meets at a book signing.

Sagnier is being pursued by a spoilt rich boy (Benoit Magimel) who is desperate to get her into bed but it's the author who gets his head on her pillow.

Chabrol's film, like so many French offerings, is set in that sophisticated middle-class world occupied by attractive, intelligent people with literary leanings. Typically for the director (and the French) there's also a slightly sordid air to the relationships.

It's all fun to watch and Chabrol's easy style (surely an influence on Woody Allen) remains a joy.

But it would take a rather egotistical old man to believe that Sagnier would ever have the hots for Berleand.