Elle
Composite Score: 82.1
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte, Anne Consigny, Charles Berling, Virginie Efira, Judith Magre, Christian Berkel, Jonas Bloquet, Alice Isaaz, Vimala Pons, and Raphaël Lenglet
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writer: David Birke
Genres: Crime, Drama, Thriller
MPAA Rating: R for violence involving sexual assault, disturbing sexual content, some grisly images, brief graphic nudity, and language
Box Office: $12.75 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Elle is the film adaptation of Philippe Djian’s novel “Oh…”, which tells the story of a rape victim who seeks to discover the identity of her attacker and enact her own form of justice on him. The film features Isabelle Huppert as the protagonist Michèle, the head of a video game design company who is recently divorced from her husband, has a father in prison, and struggles to maintain solid relationships with both her mother and her son. At its heart, the film is about a woman taking control of her life and overcoming the traumas that men have forced on her since childhood. Huppert delivers a solid performance, and the story is one that will keep you guessing through to the end.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Though the message is one of female empowerment and women controlling their own lives, the film’s overall premise has a major flaw – namely, that the catalyst to Michèle’s newfound confidence and power is her rape. While there is no indication that she was not a fully competent woman before being raped, the way the film unfolds and focuses on all the control she exerts after the incident leaves open the very problematic interpretation that she never would have made most of the choices that she does had she not been raped. While I do not believe this to be the intent of Huppert, Verhoeven, or Djian, after watching, I can see why some critics have offered similar critiques.
Within Elle, there also exists the delicate issue of how to handle knowing the rapist personally, especially, as with Michèle, when it is someone that the victim is/was attracted to. I think the film does a decent job of handling this issue and giving Michèle full agency for the entire process. It just is a difficult subject matter to broach, and for people coming from similar situations, the film does not necessarily offer the clearest solutions or the most positively impactful. Take this one in with a grain of salt.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
For one, Isabelle Huppert delivers arguably the best performance of her career in Elle. She embodies the complexities of Michèle as the flawed protagonist. She makes the character into the compelling study that she is. On the one hand, she is pitiable and needy, the perfect victim who needs to heal. On the other hand, she is abrasive and somewhat amoral, the ideal antihero in a revenge thriller. Huppert puts these two sides of the character together in a glorious mixture that leaves the audience questioning not just the film’s motivations, but hers as well. She was well-deserving of her Golden Globe win and Oscar nomination in 2016.
Though the film’s problematic starting and ending points leave some doubts as to the efficacy of the film, Elle is elevated to greatness by an original story and the brilliant acting of Isabelle Huppert in the lead role, cementing a slot among the Greatest Films of All Time. By focusing on the positives of the film’s empowerment of its female characters while also acknowledging the issues with empowering women through sexual violence, audiences should be able to appreciate what the filmmakers were trying to do with this incredibly complex piece of cinema. Check this out streaming through Starz or to rent in various places.
