Nonureva Really Surprised!

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The Movie Diorama Psychologically stimulating throughout, Verhoeven portrays a different response to the invasive penetration of rape. One I haven't seen before, and considering the event in question immediately takes place as the film commences, the originality of this perspective bursts through the screen. A businesswoman, leading a video game company, is raped in her own home but decides not to report it due to past incidents with the police. Two vital elements of this production elevate it above the endless stream of psychological thrillers. Verhoeven's astute direction and Huppert's electrifying central performance. She, somehow, maintains a role that demands physical prowess and emotional damage. Her character's work life is so important and hectic, that she has no choice but to continue on despite the horrific crime that took place. Huppert magnificently conveyed rigidity, she was a strong character that you subconsciously admire her, even if her moral compass is slightly skewed. The psychological aspects remained refreshing as Verhoeven slowly peels away the complex layers that shroud this thriller. Plenty of backstory, substantial character development and an array of suspicious individuals, each carrying immorality. Some of the scenes, particularly the sexual encounters, felt reminiscent to 90s erotic thrillers due to the musical score. Old fashioned, yet nostalgically innovative. The problem, and it comes down to personal taste, was with a specific plot point that left the entire third act rather unfocused. Once the culprit is identified, Huppert's character seemingly continues sexual activities and it came across as hyperbolically forced, just to further illustrate her dementedness. It didn't work for me and released the grip that this thriller had on me. Also the relentless wave of unlikable characters really hindered the emotional response the story was trying to achieve. A decent thriller, one that is produced to the highest quality possible, but crumbles far too quickly towards its conclusion.

aarosedi This film can be best described as an examination of the portrayal of rape in the audio-visual medium, and starts it with just that. The protagonist, Elle, a middle-aged lady, head of a video game company, becomes a victim of a brutal attack by a masked man in her own home. She is then seen later on to be actively critiquing the CG animation medieval fantasy rape scenes being made by her company. She barely has time to go to the hospital and went on to get tested for STD instead and not even bothering to report the incident to the police. Deadlines are tight in the office.Spoilers are necessary for people who are being introduced to this film that should be restricted to that introductory scene if only to serve as a forewarning. The film should be considered synonymous with the word rape. Doing so will not dampen the appreciation for this film for that only just barely scrapes the surface. The meaty aspect of this film is in the methods that Elle used in identifying her predator, and that subversiveness in infusing black comedic elements to a very a dark subject. An example of that would be how the rape at the start of the film would be replayed twice and with each iteration of the horrific, horrendous, hideous incident, the humor pervades. It is weirdly amazing and twisted. That's what I consider the Verhoeven genius. My knowledge of French-language films is fairly limited, don't know the language, and I've only seen Huppert on film once before, Ma mere, where she played a character that's not really very flattering, and my ignorance of her stature in French cinema certainly didn't help. But, man, she's gives a tour-de-force performance portraying an embattled lady having to also contend with domestic and workplace problems.It's sublime how the clever script, the musical score, superb cast and the cute black cat named Marty really helped elevate this thriller into becoming a window to the world of a steadfast but flawed lady that still manages to be such a paragon of resilience.My rating: A-flat.

subintegral I ended up writing an essay about how much I hated this movie and IMDb forced me to trim my review down. I started again, but let me be as concise and clear as I can be: don't watch this movie. It's so awful.1. It makes no sense at all. The characters are capricious and not in a fun, loving way. They are frustratingly stupid and moronic. You cannot connect with any character or feel empathy for them. I don't feel sorry for Michele basically asking to be raped. If she goes down into a basement alone and desires sex (as she admits at the end of the movie, getting laid was part of her goals), I can't feel sorry for her when she is treated badly. I lost any sense of feeling sorry for the character.2. The worldview is negative and idiotic. Everyone is apparently deaf, dumb and blind. Her mother ends up dying... just like that. The baby born two times darker than Vincent doesn't strike him as odd. It's silly and stupid.3. It won't leave you feeling educated, inspired or happier. It's a waste of time. You won't get anything but a massive headache, which I did get. I took a painkiller (wish I was joking), because the headache from that movie was intensely painful.I hope that no one wastes their time on this trollop. It's the worst movie I have seen to date. Again, I wish I was joking, but I have never seen anything this bad. This takes the cake, except the creepy neighbor will probably rape the cake according to this movie's standards.There are good French films out there if you want to find something fun to watch on Netflix. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

ershkia It is often unhelpful to try to squeeze a film into a single main idea and that is even more true if the film is a good one. But I am going to break my own rule here to talk about the latest film by Paul Verhoeven. Not that I think Elle lacks nuance, but without seeing the thread that binds this film together, the intentionally provocative tone of the film can detract from its merits and push the film into lazy pigeonholes: misogynistic, exploitative, incoherent and if you are looking for a longer list of pejorative adjectives, Richard Brody's review in the New Yorker is an excellent thesaurus.Elle starts with a rape scene and what follows is how the main character, Michèle, deals with this presumably traumatic experience. I say presumably because her reaction to this incident throughout the film defies all expectations of how anyone might react to an assault. After the intruder leaves her house, she gets up, with some difficulty of course, sweeps the broken plates off the floor, takes a bath and orders takeout for dinner. And when she finally realizes that the rapist after all was her neighbour, someone whom she happened to have a crush on, the viewer is confronted with another what-the-heck moment when she, this time willingly, gets herself beaten down again. Let's start with the easiest hypothesis to refute. This film is plainly not about the damage rape can do to the victims, the film doesn't even try to make the protagonist likable enough to get the viewer's sympathy. A revenge thriller with a strong female cast? Surely there is an element of revenge in the film but it is hard to reduce it to a revenge story when the protagonist is drawn to her rapist. A misogynist story, disguising itself behind a criticism of conventional morality to show rape as a common fantasy and not all that terrible in reality? If she, a woman with a strong and dominant personality throughout the film, subconsciously yearns submission, why does she have to ruin her dream came true by taking her revenge at the end? And here is why I think a single main force behind Michèle's actions can save us from this confusion, and that force is not morality, or a sense of justice or shame or anger, or the society's pressure, but the agency to do what she desires to do in spite of all that. What the film is doing here is highlighting agency by taking the notion to its unnerving and sometimes darkly comical extreme. After the assault happens, she is physically hurt but mentally settled enough to order a takeout. She doesn't call the cops not because she is embarrassed or afraid of telling people what happened, she tells her ex-husband and friends about the story in the restaurant scene after all, but why bother with the cops if she can take matters in her own hand? Her reaction is no different every time someone reminds her of her mass murderer father out of spite, she keeps calm and carries on. But why does she willingly fall prey to the neighbour's sadistic behaviour? Is she a masochist? Well, the last thing she probably cares about is we pondering what she is or she is not.This is not to say that Elle should be seen as a manual on how to handle sexual assault, or as a realistic character study of Michèle and her motives. What the film does though, so effectively and so outlandishly, is bring to life not perhaps the most lovable but a memorably strong character that leads her life with the ultimate agency.