Elle Review

Star Rating: Very Good 4/5

ELLE is a gripping and intense psychological thriller - directed by Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven - which combines black humour and unsettling scenes of sexual violence.

Isabelle Huppert as Michele.

Isabelle Huppert is captivating as the lead Michele – a strong, wealthy co-owner of a male-dominated video games company with her closest friend Anna (Anne Consigny).

She lives alone in a spacious townhouse fitted with large glass patio doors that provides a chilling setting for which a masked intruder suddenly appears within the opening scenes.

 

The man rapes Michele and during a frightening struggle she is seen desperately trying to escape and tugging on a table cloth from behind as she falls to her back pinned underneath him.

Afterwards she cleans up the blood from her legs and sweeps up a broken vase from the table before resuming with her day as if nothing happened. Then later at work she leaves to visit a doctor, but does not contact the police, before brazenly continuing on with her business.

We are gradually introduced to others within her life – all of whom she shares an impaired relationship with.

Notably, her son Vincent (Jonas Bloquet) and his domineering pregnant girlfriend Josie (Alice Isaaz), her ex-husband Rochard (Charles Berling) and his new girlfriend, and a man who she is seen in various states of undress having a physical affair with.

Michele is unfazed by a visit to her mother Irene (Judith Magre) who is accompanied by a young, unclothed lover. Here we learn that her father, who was imprisoned for mass murder when she was a child, is applying for parole. Michele is wary of law enforcement and the media as a result of her traumatic childhood ordeals during his case, whilst its reopening causes an impending sense of danger that she may be targeted.

The film weaves in and out of the different stories and throughout this time Michele is seen replaying the rape over in her mind. In one re-imagining she is able to protect herself which emphasises her quest not to be a victim.

However, by choosing to delve into so many different relationships within a two hour film fails to allow any one of the sub-stories to carry enough weight for the viewer to form an interest in.

Between this dizzying number of events there are unnerving scenes where the camera closely follows her in her empty flat locking doors, and jumping as her cat appears.

She begins to receive threats from the unknown assailant, and starts to suspect that her attacker might have been one of the men from her work. In the meantime a sexually explicit animation circulates her office, and an eerie sense that she is being watched is created as she tries to establish who her attacker is.

Relationships further intensify as does the connection with the rapist. It appears that Michele is being punished from all sides as the film evolves to take a perverse and unexpected turn.

Huppert offers gripping performances which portray the films mounting tension, and add a depth of feeling throughout the horror of the storylines - scripted by David Birke and based on the novel Oh… by French novelist Phillipe Dijan.

The director, Paul Verhoeven, who made the controversial erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), the 1997 satirical action film Starship Troopers, and the highly praised 2006 Dutch thriller Black Book. He felt that Elle was an opportunity for him to experiment with something different.

He struggled to find an actress to take on the role of Michele, and felt that Nicole Kidman “could handle it”. He also considered Charlize Theron, Julianne Moore, Sharon Stone, Marion Cotillard, Diane Lane, and Carice van Houten.

Verhoeven told The Guardian that his inability to convince a major American actress to play the part left him frustrated. He explained, "I agree that there are not many female parts – certainly not in American cinema. It's weird that when there is one, they lacked the audacity to be controversial. I hope all these actresses see the movie."

The film then proved too difficult to shoot in the United States due to its immoral and violent content. Verhoeven felt that to film there would mean changing the film’s direction and therefore diminishing the story and its mystery.

He decided to produce the film in France, and spent time learning the language, to communicate with his French cast and crew. He cast the star, Huppert, 64, who accepted immediately, describing him as “one of the best directors in the world for me”.

Isabelle Huppert with Paul Verhoeven at the Golden Globes in 2016.

She said: “I had no doubt about the integrity of the role,” and added that Michele’s “a really interesting character because she always goes against predictable definitions of what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man.

“Obviously, the movie's about a woman. But it's also about men, you know, and the men are sort of fading figures, very weak, quite fragile. So it's really also about the empowerment of a woman.”

Last year the French actress, who has starred in more than 100 productions since her debut in 1971, won a Golden Globe Award, Independent Spirit Award and nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for work in Elle.

She is the most nominated actress for the Cesar Award and won Best Actress for Elle, and previously in 1995 for her film La Ceremonie – a film The Guardian newspaper rated as number 16 of their 25 Best Crime Films of All Time.

Isabelle Huppert with the Elle cast at Cannes 2016.

Her English-language films include a western, Heaven's Gate (1980), comedy I Heart Huckabees (2004), The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2013), and the American drama, Louder Than Bombs (2015).

Online film database, IMDB, has more than 30,000 reviews for Elle, with an overall rating of 7.3/10. David Sexton of The Evening Standard described the film as "outrageous, funny and shocking, exhilarating and original."

Catherine Bray of Time Out wrote that it takes “constant delight in venturing where the vast majority of filmmakers would fear to tread.” Predicting: "It's a film that will inspire debate for decades to come.”

Details

Language: French

Release: May 26, 2016

Length: 130 minutes

Country: France and Germany

Cast: Isobelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny, Charles Berling, Virginie Efira, Judith Magre, Christian Berkel, Jonas Bloquet, Alice Isaaz.

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Screenplay: David Birke

Based on Novel: Oh… by Philippe Dijan