Review of Elles (2011) by Ola S — 16 Mar 2012

Is this a story about khatarsis or breaking down? The question is unanswered and should perhaps remain so.

Juliette Binoche plays this journalist who interviews two female students, who finance their university studies through prostitution. She's investigating in an objective way but the objects aren't really items to be investigated. They are businesswomen, hardly disgusted, very organized and all in a way which makes it difficult for Binoche to be neither shocked nor journalistic. Instead she sees herself trapped in a common gender power situation. She's the one who is investigated. By herself. And it's not voluntarily.

But it's all too simple. The girls don't act bad at all, but they remain stereotypes, which is due to the script. Also Binoche's fate is a little of what the could expected already from one of the first scenes, when she can't close the fridge.

Good intelligent try by director Malgoska Szumowska. But perhaps somewhat a blind alley.