Elle – first look review

Paul Ver­ho­even exam­ines con­tro­ver­sial sub­ject mat­ter with this juicy and com­plex char­ac­ter study of a smart busi­ness­woman who is sex­u­al­ly assault­ed in her home. The direc­tor takes his time in build­ing mys­tery and intrigue sur­round­ing Michèle’s (Isabelle Hup­pert) trag­ic, vio­lent past and approach­es her ques­tion­able actions with a glee­ful­ly per­verse sense of humour.

The film opens on com­plete black­ness. We hear only crash­ing sounds and Michèle’s screams as she is raped by a masked intrud­er. On his depar­ture, Michèle bins her dress, takes a long hot bath, orders sushi and awaits the arrival of her grown-up and mild­ly incom­pe­tent son, Vin­cent (Jonas Blo­quet). She lies about her assault and car­ries on regardless.

Ver­ho­even returns to this bru­tal event sev­er­al times through­out the film and as we enter fur­ther into Michèle’s mind the pic­ture becomes clear­er. But we also wit­ness her fan­ta­sy of tak­ing revenge on her assailant. These ini­tial scenes are shock­ing and infused with a chill­ing grim­ness. The humour only seeps in when Michèle is in charge. She refus­es to become a vic­tim or report the crime, part­ly owing to her dis­en­fran­chise­ment with the police. Instead she takes mat­ters into her own hands with a can of pep­per spray and a minia­ture axe.

At the cen­tre of this sala­cious thriller, which is loose­ly based on the nov­el by French writer Philippe Dijan, is the indomitable Isabelle Hup­pert, who deliv­ers glo­ri­ous glances of utter con­tempt in a bold and unflinch­ing per­for­mance. She runs a com­put­er game com­pa­ny with her best friend, Anna (Anne Con­signy), whose hus­band she is hav­ing an affair with. Her strange behav­iour doesn’t end there.

She flirts with her Catholic next door neigh­bour, Patrick (Lau­rent Lafitte), and con­tin­ues to keep ex-hus­band Richard (Charles Berling) close despite the fact that he hit her. She also has a dif­fi­cult pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship with tal­ent­ed games pro­gram­mer Kurt (Lucas Pris­or), whose arro­gant atti­tude in the work place she con­fronts. As we are intro­duced to the men in Michèle’s life the sus­pects are lined up for the view­er to judge.

Ver­ho­even homes in on the tense inter­ac­tions between Michèle and her fam­i­ly and friends. She’s cru­el to her moth­er, whom she holds account­able for her father’s abhor­rent deeds. Her deter­mi­na­tion to hold the pow­er in all sit­u­a­tions bleeds in to her con­fronta­tion­al reac­tion to her assault. At one point she breaks the upset­ting news to her friends over a posh din­ner, absolute­ly res­olute in the fact that she should not be ashamed of her hor­ri­ble encounter.

Michèle does not adhere to polite social eti­quette, instead brazen­ly and some­times cheek­i­ly chal­leng­ing it. Set in the run up to Christ­mas, DP Stéphane Fontaine (Jacques Audiard’s long-time col­lab­o­ra­tor) expert­ly utilis­es the twin­kle of fairy lights and the glow of nativ­i­ty scenes to con­ceal a nasty under­bel­ly of activ­i­ty. It’s all utter­ly absorb­ing to behold.