4/5 stars An ageing starlet of cinema’s golden age is targeted by a pair of opportunistic property developers in Juan José Campanella’s riotously entertaining caper, a loving evocation of Sunset Boulevard and classic Ealing comedies that marks the first live-action feature from the Argentinian since his Oscar-winning thriller, The Secret in Their Eyes . Mara Ordaz, as portrayed by Graciela Borges, is a once-great leading lady who has since retreated to a remote country estate. She shares this palatial, yet dilapidated abode, itself a decaying shrine to her fading celebrity, with three men, all retired film industry professionals, and all hopelessly devoted to Mara and the home they share. Her husband, Pedro (Luis Brandoni), was also an actor, until a near-fatal accident confined him to a wheelchair. Norberto (Oscar Martínez) and Martin (Marcos Mundstock) were Mara’s frequent collaborators, respectively director and writer of her greatest roles. The relationships between these four principals run deep, with decades of secrets, rivalries, and unresolved conflicts lurking just behind the moth-eaten curtains and lying half-buried in the overgrown grounds. They are instantly suspicious of Francisco (Nicolás Francella) and Barbara (Clara Lago), a pair of slippery city-types who stumble upon their home apparently by accident, only to immediately begin propositioning Mara to sell it. To Norberto and Martin, events are unspooling as if from one of their own movies, and they set out to expose any deception and launch a counter-attack of their own. A loose remake of the 1976 comedy Yesterday’s Guys Used No Arsenic , The Weasel’s Tale dissects the classic crime capers of the 1950s with the same devoted enthusiasm with which it venerates the star-driven melodramas that propelled Mara to stardom. The performances across the board are fantastic, especially from Borges. One can only imagine how close Mara’s plight skews to the actress’ own, but what she leaves up on the screen is by turns gleefully sadistic and heartbreakingly vulnerable. She is a woman who has bought into her own self-importance, lived as a legend, only to be shunned by the very industry that created her, and is now surrounded only by those she has hurt and grown to despise. Campanella and his collaborators never let you forget that you are watching a movie, one in which the characters involved are masters of that very craft. What might have seemed a shameless self-indulgence has rarely felt so hard-earned and expertly executed. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook