Is it possible simultaneously to want a film to win an Oscar and to wish it hadn’t been made? That’s how confused I felt after seeing Elle with Isabelle Huppert – a woman for whom the adjective hard-boiled (in a French way) doesn’t even come close to her unvarying self-possession. Elle, directed by Paul Verhoeven, is about rape, violent rape, and the aftermath of rape, but this is as odd a depiction of victimhood as you can get.
Huppert – Michèle Leblanc in the movie – is plainly brutalised by a sudden attack in her home by a masked intruder, in a wetsuit, who hits her repeatedly to subjugate her – every woman’s worst nightmare. Hearing the attack off camera over the opening credits, you think that’s it, the rape is out of the way, thank God. Oh no it isn’t.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, the problem with the film is that Huppert’s reactions are all wrong.
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