Elle

no doubt, isabelle huppert is always good at playing a soured woman, or an insubstantial woman, or an overexcitable woman. and this film gives her the opportunity to be all three at once, as a volatile and rather shallow software executive (made money in literature, bought the software company to tell stories) who is soured by her backstory, sleeping with her best friends lover, cruel to her mother and a very poor parent to her son. shes raped right at the beginning, so the plot is focused on unmasking the perpetrator, but all along i never really cared who it was. shes not a sympathetic character, her frigid and manipulative behavior is distasteful, and the whole thing reeks of the most foreign aspects of french esthetic and moral sensibilities. certainly not an oscar worthy performance.

Very dark but very good!

Kept hoping itd get better, but no.

Isabelle Huppert is amazing in a story that is provocatively contrived yet with a grain of truth at its base. What starts out like some Hollywood revenge fantasy veers into workplace drama, deranged family farce and of course, sexual transgression. Its got all the earmarks of classic Verhoeven: venal men, strong, if bare breasted women, perverse twists, taboo toppling. the director seems to take especial glee in humiliating just about every character in some way or another. Its ultimately a pitch black comedy, with Huppert doing her best Buster Keaton: she takes a licking and pops back up with a sort of aggressive impassivity. It revels in going to extremes, but like a Lynch, Almodovar or Cronenberg movie makes weird sense on its own terms. The story is riffing on the phenomenon of how some victims of trauma come to find comfort, even pleasure in ritualized violence, BDSM, in this case, rape play. Hupperts character is the daughter of a notorious mass murderer grown up to be the CEO of a company that makes hyper violent video games. She seeks to dominate all around her, with mixed success, when a sexual assault puts her on a path of self discovery and acceptance. Really. Less in line with the directors more tepidly risque Hollywood output, Elle hearkens back to the giddy perversity of the The 4th Man. Which makes it kind of a homecoming for Verhoeven, finally returning to making the kind of movies he was clearly put on this earth to do.

Ends just like a typical French movie, if you know about them, youll know.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be giving anything starring one of my favorite screen stars a poor review. So many glowing ones here, and yet I am stumped. I loved The Piano Teacher in which she played a sexually suppressed and twisted woman. And I have loved just about everything else shes done. I had high hopes for this film when it started. She looks fabulous; the rest of the cast is great. And yet - it just didnt add up on so many levels, most notably the physical. How could it be that this woman is raped and beaten again and again and yet comes up glowing and bouncy, able to dance with her rapist after having her knee gashed by him. Why is her face seen as perfectly alabaster after multiple throttlings by her horrible abuser? I was somehow led to believe that she extracts her revenge on him, and I thought that was going to be in some clever, interesting way, but no - in the end she is as despicable as the rapist in my opinion, leaving it to an innocent to do the killing. Is her sang froid in so many sensitive situations supposed to imply that she does, after all, take after her psychopathic father? The finale seems to prove this; what she has done to her best friend. But whats particularly troublesome is that she is forgiven, again and again, by the people she uses. That does not ring true. A person like that might be feared but she would also be hated by others, not celebrated and adored. So for me, this is less about a poor woman who is raped than about a total narcissist/sociopath who has no qualms about using everyone around her, including her son, for her twisted needs and desires. No, this one just didnt add up. Mostly, though, it was her lack of any scars or physical repercussions of rape. That is an insult to women who have suffered rape and live with the mental and phsyical damages. Im shocked that critics didnt understand that. The cool, attractive cookie role not only doesnt work here, its destructive to women, and I would not advise any woman I know to see it.

A good actress but a creepy movie

Isabelle Huppert was outstanding. All the acting was excellent. On the surface, the plot seems straightforward enough, but it is not. The psychological profiles of the lead actress (Huppert) and the rapist were extremely complicated. to say the least. All of this is my opinion of course, but the character of Elle did not appeal to me. She was a mix of both masochist and sadist stemming from a hideous childhood trauma. The rapist was just that; a violent rapist who beat his victims. I dont know if the Director was trying to get a romantic spin on rape or not (I hope not), but Ill just keep to my opinion that they were two of the worse people I would never like to meet.

Hands down, the most peculiar film Ive ever seen. Perhaps the comedy is lost in the cultural translation from French to American but it was not to my taste! The subject matter is distasteful and if this is what the French define as comedy, well, its all just wrong in my opinion. The main characters disregard for not only herself but those around her is startling and disturbing. Do, I regret spending time on this film, no. But would I ever recommend someone take time out of their life to view it, absolutely not.

Director Paul Verhoeven is famous for his provocative films, often combining sex, violence and psychological power play. Actress Isabelle Huppert is famous for her demanding roles, often playing powerful women with an obsession for sex and/or violence. Put the two together and you can guess what you get. Elles lead character, Michèle, is a woman who owns a video game company, specializing in games filled with extreme sex and violence. She casually shares her bed with her best friends husband. She masturbates watching the neighbour unloading the trunk of his car. Her father is a convicted serial killer. Oh, and she doesnt seem to mind getting raped. At least, thats the impression after the very first scene. After having been attacked and violently raped, she doesnt call the police of even a friend, but a fast food restaurant, ordering something to eat. The film explores not only Michèles relationship with her rapist, whose identity is established after about two thirds of the film, but also the men and women in her immediate circle. They all have their problems and peculiarities, and Michèle seems to pull all their strings as a hard, cold woman, superbly mastering her feelings and emotions. For the viewer, it takes some effort to understand all the different relationships, and even more to grasp Michèles behaviour. The only explanation Verhoeven offers, is her troubled youth as the daughter of a serial killer. In my opinion, the film suffers from an overload of characters with psychological difficulties. Theres a mother hiring a gigolo because she cant accept getting older, theres a son clinging to a dominating girlfriend, a neighbour with a wife obsessed with religion, an employee playing a dirty trick on Michèle, and so on. Personally, I found it a bit too much. The one thing that stands out in this film, is Isabelle Hupperts acting. Any other actress could easily have made Michèles character unbelievable. But Hupperts utter detachment from any form of sensitivity makes the part completely convincing.