Audrey Diwan’s cold take on the infamous erotic softcore French novel leaves a bit too much to be desired.
A decision was made to reclaim the kitsch icon of ’70s erotica – she of the pixie-cut, floaty chiffon and wicker chairs – and bring her kicking and screaming into the hostile glass-and-steel climes of the roaring 2020s. The imagined ideal of Audrey Diwan’s second feature as writer/director, following her superb Golden Lion-winner, Happening, is far more alluring and exotic than the rather vanilla reality, as Noémie Merlant’s sex-positive seductress organises her kinky escapades around her day job as a luxuary hotel inspector.
This new film is certainly more palatable and markedly (though not entirely) less racist than Just Jaeckin’s 1974 hit, in which white westerners use South East Asia as their playground without so much as a gesture of good will towards the locals. The story centres around whether Emmanuelle will recommend that a grand dame hotelier played by Naomi Watts gets the boot, and also whether she’ll manage to slide under the thick skin of a too-cool-for-school chain-smoking architect played by a miscast Will Sharpe.
The film is not wanting for alluring, dramatic situations, but the filmmakers seem at best haplessly blind and at worst blithely dismissive of their potential. Yes, it scores some points for its militant aversion to any sort of climax, in line with Emmanuelle’s own erotic journey, but it really doesn’t make for particularly exciting or revealing viewing.
Little White Lies is committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them.
Published 15 Jan 2025
Diwan proved she’s got the juice with her debut, Happening, but can the lightening strike twice?
The intentions behind this provocative adaptation end up feeling frustratingly obscure.
Anticlimactic and unerotic – if those were the intentions, then this one deserves a five.
Audrey Diwan’s significant and unflinching adaptation of Annie Erneux’s memoir of a teen abortion is one of the year’s best films.
Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.
