Frankie

Director Fabienne Berthaud's cautionary tale of the fashion industry shows it's not all a world of preening nonentities who "won't wake up for less than $10,000 a day".

Diane Kruger's Frankie is a cut-price Kate Moss, a jobbing commercials model whose drearily itinerant lifestyle sees her flitting between cheap hotels and friends' settees.

It's not a life of glamour but one of drudgery. Prima donna fashion photographers sulk or rage if the shoot doesn't go well while avaricious agencies constantly maintain the pressure to perform.

At 26 Frankie regards herself as a "coathanger that's about to be retired" and allows the relentless grind of photographic shoots to stretch her to breaking point.

When she does snap - after a particularly gruelling run-in with a flouncing prat of a photographer - she's sent to a crumbling clinic which appears to be run by the Romanian NHS.

Berthaud contantly flashes back and forward as we follow Frankie's perfectly coutured decline from reluctant clothes-horse to stumbling, emotional wreck.

The callous disregard of an Armani-clad industry to her plight is coldly conveyed and it's significant that the only friendly face is her regular driver Tom (Gravelines).

One problem is that Miss K (who also produced) always looks a million dollars - she was once a Dolce & Gabbana cover girl - even when she's swathed in a threadbare health service sheet.

Yet it's never less than affecting and - in its own quiet way - a chilling indictment of an industry where beauty - emotional or otherwise - is literally skin deep.

Tim Evans