Elle

Very dark but very good!

good

Agreed. Its dark and the second half of the movie will be very uncomfortable. At some points its almost comical - the gale force Parisian winds, the boiler room, and the black cat.

Great movie--another foreign masterpiece. Great acting and amazing sexual scenes. Best foreign movie of the year ! You have got to check this one out--with a great ending. Saw it twice at the theatres and I bought a copy for my collection. Get this one!!!!.

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.

Well...life is complicated...especially if youre French. But I actually kind of liked it in a perverse sort of way. Interesting story with a strong female lead.

Woman is raped in her home. The scene is played over and over. She refuses to go to the police as she has a bad history with the police--her father is a mass murder who killed all her neighbors, their kids, and their pets when she was a little girl. In fact the way she robotically goes about her life afterwards you wouldnt think she thought much about it. I think one of her friends even comments on that. In her half-hearted attempt to find out who it is (she thinks it is a young guy who works for her) she continues having an affaire with her best friend and company co-owners husband; she fondles, flirts, and even masturbates (while watching him out the window) to/with her devout Christian neighbors husband; pays for her learning disabled and fast food working sons apartment with his girlfriend who obviously had a baby by someone other than him (the baby comes out black); and gets jealous of her ex-husbands new young Yoga instructor girlfriend. In short, the heroine in this movie, along with the supporting characters, are just vile, immoral, disgusting people. They are damaged in one way or another. They arent redeemed in the end. There is nothing I can relate to in any of them. And as usual with this type of movie, including it being French, there are the cold callous moments in regards to sex and relationships that isnt even human. And what is even more disgusting is that the main character finds out who her rapist is and continues to sleep with him (or let him abuse her depending upon how you look at it). She tells him that their relationship is diseased and twisted when she comes home from a party she invited him to( weirdo). That is, she does this until her son comes home and bashes the rapist/lovers head in (which you get to see in graphic detail) when the son thinks his mom is being assaulted again, which she is not, again, depending upon the definition of depravity you apply to this garbage. There is the usual Hollywood mocking of Christians in the movie and portraying them as weird and demented, right up to the end scene. The woman even owns one of those violent computer game companies. We, the audience, have the pleasure of watching violent scenes from that. Just a disaster of a movie that starts and goes no where.

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.

It was a little confusing, but it was worth the watch.

By far, one of my most favorite movies, ever!