Starring Caroline Dhavernas, Kevin Pollak, Anna Friel, and Wendy Crewson. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, March 24, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

It's Caroline Dhavernas week in Vancouver cinemas! How often does such a limited actor get starring roles in two independent films opening the same day? Still, if you are going to choose only one Caroline Dhavernas movie, it should be this one, because, well, These Girls stinks.

Amiably directed by Gary Yates, Niagara Motel has its smelly moments too, mostly, if not exclusively, courtesy of the above-named actor. But this near-omnibus effort at least has the virtue of variety. Taken from short plays by George F. Walker, the film (shot in Winnipeg despite the Niagara Falls location) jumps from story to story within the very loose-not to say utterly decrepit-confines of the you-know-what motel.

Nominally managed by a dishevelled Scotsman (Craig Ferguson-perhaps the only talk-show host who can actually act a little) on a bender since his bride went into the wet stuff, the place is temporary home to some down-on-their luck folks. There's a Toronto couple (Wendy Crewson and Peter Keleghan, each digging a little deeper than they usually get to) desperate to hold onto their social standing but not so sure about their marriage. Just starting out, but even further behind, is a rough young couple (impressive Canadian Kristen Holden-Reid and Brit firecracker Anna Friel, doing a perfect local accent) attempting to recover the baby they lost to a life of drugs and booze.

Meanwhile, over at the greasy spoon owned by the same Serbian couple that has let the motel fall to pieces, the new waitress is pitting a small-town suitor (Tom Barnett) against a would-be hustler (Kevin Pollak, who starred in the director's previous feature, Seven Times Lucky) wanting to put her in no-budget sex movies. Trouble is, she is played by Dhavernas, who has a voice dripping with poutine when her character is speaking French to a boyfriend back home, but this naive kid, fresh from Quebec, has zero accent in English-you know, kind of like an ambitious actor who wants to make more than porn.

That's not the only thumb that sticks out sorely, but Yates manages to keep events moving quickly enough that bad moments are soon superceded by intriguing ones-even if some of the "adult" elements aren't quite as edgy as they should be. (Gee, is Crewson's bitchy hausfrau really going to start hooking when the money runs out?) The Friel subplot has the most weight, Ferguson's the least. Still, he does get the last word, and it, um, goes over better than a bad actor at a John Waters audition.