Elle

Plot synopsis:
Michèle Leblanc is raped in her home by an assailant in a ski mask, then promptly cleans up the mess and resumes her life.
She is the assertive head of a successful video game company, where her male employees are alternately resentful of or infatuated with her. She feels detached from her son Vincent, who submits to the pregnant Josie, his domineering, ungrateful and likely unfaithful girlfriend. Michèle has a contentious relationship with her mother, Irène, whom she resents for her narcissism and involvements with younger men. Meanwhile, she carries on an affair with Robert, the husband of her best friend and business partner Anna, and develops a risqué flirtation with her neighbor Patrick, a banker who is married to a devoutly Catholic woman named Rebecca. Furthermore, Michèle is the daughter of an infamous mass murderer—who involved the then 10-year-old Michèle in his murder spree—whose parole hearing is soon approaching. Haunted by the violent event from her childhood and the subsequent media frenzy, Michèle is wary of law enforcement and does not report the rape to police, despite the pleas of her friends.
Following the rape, Michèle grows increasingly suspicious of the men in her life. She receives harassing text messages from her assailant at a blocked number, indicating he knows her and is watching her. She at first suspects Kurt, a particularly resentful employee, when a CGI animation of a monster raping her is emailed to everyone at the company. She pepper sprays a man lurking outside her house, only to find out it is Richard, her ex-husband, who was checking on her safety. She later discovers that another employee who has been infatuated with her created the animation, but did not rape her.
On Christmas Eve, Irène suffers a major stroke, and begs her daughter to go see her father before falling into a coma and dying at the hospital. Michèle is later attacked in her home by the same masked assailant one night, and after stabbing his hand and unmasking him, learns that he is Patrick. Though Patrick has been harassing her and she now knows that he is able to enter her home despite having her locks changed after the previous incident, she still does not call the police, and furthermore takes no measures to increase her home security.
Michèle decides to visit her father after his parole application is rejected, only to find that he has hanged himself hours before she arrived, which Michèle suspects is because he could not bear to face her again. On the way home from the prison she gets into a car crash in a secluded area. Rather than calling an ambulance, she first calls her friends, who don't answer, and then decides to call Patrick. After Patrick rescues her from the car and bandages her, Michèle courts a brazenly dangerous sexual relationship with him. She engages in a vivid rape scenario while attempting to mitigate his inability to perform with a consenting woman. The two of them walk a delicate line in which Patrick has to feel like he is raping Michèle even though she consents to the roleplay.
Michèle grows increasingly disillusioned with the various facets of her life leading up to the celebration party for the premiere of her company's new video game. She confesses to Anna that she was having an affair with Robert. As Patrick drives her home from the party, Michèle professes that she is no longer in denial about their unhealthy relationship, and claims she intends to call the police. She takes her time walking in front of his parked car after getting out, and then before entering her home makes a point to leave the gate unlocked. Patrick enters the house and attacks her in an ambiguous encounter that blurs the line between rape and consent—but Vincent, who was already in the house, sneaks up behind Patrick as he is on top of Michèle, and bashes him in the back of the skull. Michèle appears to remain largely composed during and after the rape, but before dying, Patrick seems confused.
In the film's epilogue, Michèle speaks briefly with Rebecca as she is moving out of the neighbourhood. Rebecca is placid and expresses gratitude to Michèle for being able to temporarily "satisfy Patrick's needs"—implying that she was aware on some level that the two were sexually involved and that Patrick had inclinations she, as his wife, couldn't satisfy. Vincent is shown to be a bit more assertive in his relationship and career, while Michèle reconciles with both Josie and Anna, the latter of whom offers to move in with her now that they have both severed their relationships with Robert.

Tags: flashback

Review:
The performances in the film are all fantastic, and the direction is magnificent (Verhoeven actually took to learning French as a new language so he could utilise an entire French crew), the cinematography and soundtrack both make great accompaniments, but I personally think the film's structure was the only downside to the film.The subject matter is rather grim, revolving around sexual assault and the estranged relationship between the main character and her parents, but there are instances of humour that just give that little hint of lightheartedness to a relatively dark premise.
"Elle" means "She" - the whole movie is seen through the eyes of the character played by Isabelle Huppert, a woman being victim of an aggression in the first scene of the film.From there you will probably be unable to predict the plot, as its structure doesn't follow the rules we've been used to.
At first you might think it's just a thriller but the writing has more to offer and deploys in original ways.Isabelle Huppert delivers a great performance playing a strong female character, something quite rare in movies.The film can be quite shocking, but never gratuitous.
This is no sympathetic character, yet thanks to Ms. Huppert, we simply can't take our eyes off of her or stop wondering how she will handle the next situation (of which there are many).Based on the novel "Oh " by Phillipe Dijan, with a screenplay from David Birke (who has a similar theme in much of his work), the film spares us little from the daily life of Michele.
With everything on Michèle's plate, a little sexual assault is merely seasoning.The shocking opening scene will certainly have audiences squirming, and indeed Verhoeven revisits it a couple of times throughout the film as Michèle mulls over the event, with variations here and there as she imagines how she could have defended herself—or provoked him further.
And since 2000, Veerhoven has directed but three films – Hollow Man, Black Book and Tricked.With any fortune, Veerhoven will no longer take such a long sabbatical after his latest effort, Elle which was nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes and had its North American Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this past Friday.Elle stars Isabelle Huppert as Michele, a corporate CEO of a small video-game design company who deals with the emotional effects of a rape that occurs before the screen even fades in with the open scene.
A father doing time for being a serial murder, a mother who pays young studs for sex, a son who can't hold either a job or a girlfriend and her co-workers, some of which she is sexually active with, only complicate her delicate situation.Although Elle might seem like a mystery thriller, it is more of a character driven drama than a 'can-you-guess-who's-behind-the-mask'.
The film is carried by her strong and intoxicating performance and Huppert is remarkably able to keep us involved and rooting for a woman who is mean and calculating to all those associated with her path.Events don't exactly zig and zag towards an ending but I doubt audiences will be able to stay ahead of the smart script in determining what might occur next to our protagonist.Elle isn't perfect, but it is perfectly cast and executed.
And ELLE, is his first French film which debuted earlier in this year's Cannes, headlined by an impeccably charismatic Isabelle Huppert.Elle refers to Michèle LeBlanc (Huppert), a middle-aged divorcée, who is the head of a video-game company in Paris (an interesting career choice), leads a quite complacent life regardless of some dissonances, like her ex Richard (Berling), with whom she remains an amiable rapport, is dating a new graduate student Hélène (Pons) which raises her eyebrows mixed with a small dosage of jealousy; Josie (Isaaz), the insolent girlfriend of their unambitious son Vincent (Bloquet), is a vitriolic nuisance, now that she is pregnant, they are dependent on Michèle to pay the rent of a new apartment; then her botox-addicted mother Irène (Magre, so sprightly in her age, almost 90), is too smitten with her toy boy Ralph (Lenglet) to be ethical; plus that she is having an affair with Robert (Berkel), the husband of her best friend and colleague Anna (Consigny), just as corny as that.But a horrific accident will disrupt the status quo, she is raped by a masked intruder in her own apartment, and with her own reason of not reporting the case to the police (a more horrific back story here), she carries on as if nothing happens apart from changing the locks and arming herself with a bottle of pepper spray.
An honest take of masturbation with the aid of a pair of binoculars bespeaks the unflinching audacity of the film's stance: we are all libido-driven creatures, even it will subject us to very perilous situations, we still cannot resist the delectable temptation.After the plot disclosing the identity of the rapist, the guessing game is over but the story veers into a more stimulating concept of why the act repeatedly happens and how far one would go to fully embrace the exploration of one's sexuality (to the extent of sadomasochism and role-playing), on the latter regard, the film is absolutely female-empowering, while the man is basely submitted to his primal desire, it is the woman who dares to challenge the perversity, question the insanity and take the initiative to navigate the course, which cannily imbues the preordained upshot with a tinge of ambiguity (is it a knowing plan of her or an unfortunate happenstance, which makes audience wonder).The synopsis of the story might sound morbid, but Verhoeven certainly shows his level- headedness to temper it with a comedic bent, mostly owing to Huppert's superb tour-de-force, she is fantastic in her poker-face frivolousness when saddled with the dead-serious matters, and unapologetically affective in the scenes where she is alone in the frame, submerging in her own thoughts and projecting enigmatic gazes, Michèle is a a hard case to crack, so proactive to seize the fate in her own hands, refuses to be sentimental or sympathetic.
Curiously i felt like i was about the only person in the audience who was chuckling along with every scene, maybe my dark sense of humor or feeling the unmistakably Verhoeven tone more acute with every movie of this great director i get to see.
As the header title notes, the director Paul Verhoeven is indeed a pale imitation of Brian De Palma.I saw this movie at the art-house where it was the only one film that plays anywhere where I reside at this time of writing, in a second-run circuit.
Unlike "Elle," The Piano Teacher is far more nuanced with Michael Haneke's clinical directing style, slow-burn pacing, and Ms. Huppert's astonishing portrayal of a tormented and psychosexually twisted character.In my humble opinion, Huppert's role in The Piano Teacher is one of the best performances ever captured by the actress; the other (equally and non-manipulative) astoundingly superlative performances being the fellow French actress Marion Cotillard for "La Vie En Rose" and Bjork's one-off-only lead acting in the poignant "Dancer in the Dark." But "Elle" pushes the envelope not only too far, but also shreds the envelope to the extreme edge, outside of viscerally obscene hard-core pornography.The MPAA is wrong to have given this movie a mere R rating.
It's a rather vacuous commentary on the female psyche, and the sheer ludicrous elements of the entire plot leading to the bizarre "happy" ending left me flabbergasted with frustration and disbelief, because this movie demands that I leave my brain at the door in terms of excessive suspension of disbelief.Paul Verhoeven has proved himself to be the poor man's Brian De Palma, the latter who, at least, knows how to pull off the crazy plot twists and intrigues without coming off laughably absurd, until recently in the last two decades, when De Palma simply went off the deep end, not unlike Lars von Trier in the last decade.
"Elle" is simply "Basic Instinct" in reverse, and still as ludicrous as that infamous 1992 erotic thriller with plot holes and equally absurd demand for suspension of disbelief that infers puerile male chauvinist fantasy.This said, Isabelle Huppert is, as I reiterate, the bravest actress.
I doubt that she will an Oscar for Best Actress (she had won Golden Globe Best Actress award last month), simply because the Academy members, in particular elderly and perhaps more prudish, will be so offended and outraged by the risqué content and absurd plotting in "Elle" that they walk out in droves midway or turn off DVD to eject in palpable anger, given that this movie is one of the most provocative ever made to date.That this movie made me cringe with horror -- and The Piano Teacher barely made me wince, being hypnotized by the great and magnificent Isabelle Huppert's performance -- especially with grotesque sexual content (not just rape acts but also involving other elements that are just as morally offensive) is quite an accomplishment.
Verhoeven apparently hates the audience enough to mock us, and "Elle" is not an exception that belies his utter cynicism toward humanity in terms of values or the lack thereof.This "film" is borderline rubbish that thieved my ten dollars -- I seldom go to the movies -- save for Isabelle Huppert's courageous and competent performance, that no sane film actress in Hollywood and London will agree to by taking on the lead role that is perverse, dreadful and exploitative.I will be genuinely shocked if Ms. Huppert wins the Oscar for Best Actress, defying the odds given that "Elle" is the most infuriatingly ridiculous and deliberately provocative movie in recent years.
Mix in some repugnant scenes from a video game being developed by Michèle's company, a car crash, and Michele's detailing the exploits of the mass killings of her father and you have a movie that is difficult to watch.Maybe the humor is to view this as a satire on a certain segment of upscale, tech-savvy French society, but if that was the intended takeaway, it flew over my head.Huppert gives a strong, nuanced performance and that was pretty much the only thing I could appreciate.
Paul Verhoeven has a track record that would not immediately make you think he could make a movie that would empower a strong central female character, particularly one where sexual politics (and sexual violence) are key to the narrative.He's the man behind Showgirls and Basic Instinct and, errr, Diary of a Hooker after all - essentially exploitation movies to a greater or lesser degree.And it's highly debatable whether Elle succeeds in its goal, if indeed that is it.
Because, despite the incredible central performance by Isabelle Huppert (rightfully Oscar nominated) it takes her from rape victim to rape fantasist over the course of its two hours.Or did I misread it?The opening brutal rape scene knocks you back on your feet and Huppert, as Elle, a successful career woman, recovers from the ordeal remarkably sanguinely and continues her active lifestyle whilst setting out on a revenge mission of sorts.But that mission is deeply twisted and her horrendous experience seems a little ironic perhaps when we discover she is the owner of a games design company that produces games with dubious sexual morality.What's more her father has a deeply unpleasant past, also wrapped in violence in which she was implicated as a child.
I think with the exception of the son's sub-plot, which I found distracting in a way that didn't seem to help the film much (I think eventually there's some emotional moment between mother and son where he states simply that he could be a good father that does connect a little to what's going on, but it's too little and too late for me), because the focus is so much on Michele and the things that happen both to her and that she lets happen and that she does to others, the character study approach works.
I believe that 130 mions to tell the story of a women thats raped and then she looks out for its rapist its ay too long maybe 100 mins is enough (or less) the story for me felt too long at the verge that i had to ask my brother (i was watching it with him) about the time and when he checked and told me "we saw one hour so far" i said "one hour?" like thinking oh damn another hour?
Yet, not only does she do nothing to bring him to justice, but when she crashes with her car, it is him she calls to come and get her.Michele is not the only one who is a bit 'off' in the movie ('off' here being an euphemism for 'twisted')—this can be said about pretty much everyone around her—from her 90-year-old mother, who has a lover 60 years her junior, through her son, who wants to be a father so much that he doesn't even bat an eyelid when his girlfriend gives birth to a black baby, to her most trusted employee, who, in his infatuation with her, creates porn animation where she is—well, of course—raped again by a demon from hell.If you haven't guessed by now, the director of this lovely mess is Paul Verhoeven.
Set in France and done well with French subtitles "Elle" is the story of an elegant cougar socialite business lady named Michele(in a fine and top notch performance from Isabelle Huppert)who as the head of a video game company is successful, yet after being attacked in her own home and being brutally raped things change.
Once concluded, our heroine - successful business woman Michele LeBlanc - must play a cat and mouse game to determine who her masked rapist is and how to exact revenge on him while at the same time navigating her wild and wacky family.Did I mention this film is a comedy?Or, rather, it is a drama with comedic elements.
Verhoeven mines the comedy to the appropriate level that is needed while keeping the camera focused on the serious aspects of this film and the balance of the two work quite well together.Most of this can be traced to the performance of Isabelle Huppert as Michelle.
Rape is the lens through which this movie is viewed, a dark vision of humanity.Michèle tries to find the perpetrator in what at times feels like a detective story.
Yet this complex bag of character traits and human emotions never collapses under Huppert's brilliant performance.The director Paul Verhoeven knows just well enough that in order to make this movie work, one needs to simply hold the camera on Isabelle Huppert's face—she has an aura of respect surrounding her when she doesn't speak, and when she does speak, she's all the more impressive.
Movies like this, are why more people should give foreign language films a chance.Elle is described as a Drama, a Thriller and a Black Comedy.
The violent and vicious rape by a masked intruder of Michèle Leblanc, played by Isabelle Huppert, while she's in her home.This has caused some arguments between people who believe everything sexual is part of the patriarchy, and this this film, being both written and directed by men, is therefore exploiting women.
For the same reason, you find yourself feeling slightly connected to these broken individuals.The film revolves around Michèle, and her search for the identity of the rapist, but it doesn't simply focus on that at the cost of everything else, there are a number of sub-stories unravelling around her, making this feel more like real life, in a slightly over the top and bizarre way.As I said, this isn't an easy film to watch, it takes an investment, in both effort and time.
Led by an outstanding performance from Isabelle Huppert, it is a skilfully structured & finely layered character study that's no easy sit for anyone yet one can't deny its alluring quality.Elle tells the story of Michèle Leblanc, head of a successful video game company, who's ruthless in all facets of her perfectly balanced life and refuses to give it up for anyone or anything.
And Isabelle Huppert seems sporty enough to take the challenges & in return, Delivers The Performance Of The Year.'Elle' Synopsis: A successful businesswoman gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse as she tracks down the unknown man who raped her.Based on the Novel Oh...
We then learn that this woman, Michele Leblanc (Isabelle Huppert) is a successful business woman and after the attack her fears grow that the man might come back after her.I went into Paul Verhoeven's ELLE without knowing much about it.
(Whispering to her father) "I killed you by coming here." Michele (Isabelle Hupert) Michele, a lovely middle-aged video game chief exec, is raped in the first scene of Paul Verhoeven's thriller and psychological drama.
However, that means the character evolves hugely throughout the film, and the way she changes her acting depending on what light her character is cast in, whether it be the victim or a morally dubious woman with a devilish smile, is absolutely stunning to see.Of course, whilst Huppert's performance is exceptional, director Paul Verhoeven also plays a huge role in giving the film its brutal intensity.
French actress Isabelle Huppert has been brilliant before but here she is phenomenal, as strong-willed Michèle a successful business woman who works in the gaming industry until she gets her revenge after being sexually attacked.
Two, simply talking about the problem, as opposed to violently making the people who make the problem stop, will solve nothing.Pretty much the entire film, we are watching Isabelle Huppert's character, Michèle go through the trials and tribulations of her life after a masked man rapes her in her home.
I'm thinking of the Verhoeven who directed such classics as Robocop and Basic Instincts, so it does not surprise me how very sexy the movie is and how the little pieces of violence in the film are not easy to look at.It's an interesting look at a woman who was sexually assaulted.