Review of Elle (2016) by Marlene D — 12 Nov 2016

This nasty tale is clothed in the qualities expected of elite French production - elegant Parisian homes, beautiful clothing, slim physiques, glittering parties, modern workplaces, snappy dialogue, intellectual dilemma, and sex.

With Huppert in the lead, you expect the character to be serious, edgy and complex, and in the opening scene of a violent rape, many will wonder straight away whether she arranged it. This is a theme of the film - when women want to be raped, or abused online.

It is guaranteed to delight the sexists and trolls of the world, who can see themselves lifted out of the shadows and into the halo of French quality cinema. But rape and abuse are by definition without consent: the film sets up a false dichotomy.

The Huppert character journeys through the story of her relationships with her father, a bloodthirsty criminal; her mother, a nymphomaniac; her friends, neighbours and employees, her son and his new family; and the rapist.

Imitating the French cartesian and existentialist traditions based on mind versus body, and action versus the past, every turning is a decision about individual identity: what is her authentic response to each situation? Has she been true or false? When will she be free of her childhood, parents and the things she takes for granted? Rarely does she respond with the body rather than the mind - most of the time, she seems to feel little physically, of either revulsion, pain or pleasure, or even of the emotions.

(Unforgiveably, the film was however not too highbrow to apparently kill a small animal.) Like Belle de Jour, this woman emerges from the dilemmas as her own person. But in Belle de Jour, the consent was clear, and the violence was minor and controlled entirely by Belle.

In the present era of the pornography plague, and the violent pornography that goes with it, this is not a film helpful to women, who don't need a debate about when it is all right to assault them.

For young women it can only confuse them about whether they should be doing the things now being demanded of them after someone has watched it on porn, or whether they should put up with online abuse.

To deal with such things, how many of them would have the wealth and resources of the Huppert character? How many of them could so coolly ignore pain, injury and humiliation? The glamour of the Parisian milieu, Huppert, and the philosophy are only threadbare covers for the ugly realities that this film is trivialising.

Not so clever at all. One star, for the poor bird.