Michèle is attacked in her home, brutally raped by a man in a ski mask. She cleans up the mess, and herself. She doesn’t reveal the assault for several days, when she calmly tells a tableful of friends at a restaurant. Her response may seem a little cold to some, but she’s grappling with it, in fact reliving it all the time (which means we get to witness the rape repeatedly). Michèle has some childhood trauma that makes her distrustful of the police, but after the attack she continues to get threatening text messages that keep her on edge.
Michèle, the character, is an interesting woman. She’s a successful businesswoman, the boss at a video game company with a lot of young men working under her, with varying degrees of respect, resentment, and lust toward her. She has a grown son who is increasingly under the thumb of his pregnant girlfriend, and thus more estranged from his 
mother. She has exes, lovers, and erotic fixations. Some of them may surprise you. She reminds us that there are many ways to respond to this kind of violation, and none of them are necessarily wrong. But victimhood does not sit well with Michèle; Michèle plots revenge. Michèle’s complexity is a welcome layer to this psychological thriller, and it’s superbly executed by Isabelle Huppert. Huppert won the Golden Globe for her performance and is nominated for an Oscar, and it’s easy to see why. This is a career best for her, and she’s not exactly a slouch.
The harder pill to swallow is that Elle is directed by Paul Verhoeven – THAT Verhoeven; Showgirls Verhoeven. Verhoeven’s filmography is, erm, varied. Neither Robocop nor Starship Troopers really signal that he’s capable of this kind of film. Tonally it resembles Basic Instinct most closely, but this work still shows more maturity and more nuance than we’ve perhaps seen from him before. Maybe this is owing to the film’s source material, the book ‘Oh…’ by Philippe Dijan.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
You might also like The Fourth Man. It’s an early Verhoeven film that is really worth a watch, from before he went to Hollywood.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Okay, I’ll try it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
sounds like a made for tv movie.. ill hold off on this one .thank Jay
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds interesting. Girls’ night or should I take Drollery?
LikeLike
It feels too serious and creepy for a girl’s night.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hm… Might not even BE my kind of movie then. I scare easy.
LikeLike
Sounds harrowing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve been wanting to see this. My aunt said she thought it was great – tough – but the acting superb.
LikeLike
She’s right.
LikeLike
As much as I like to see the Oscar nominated acting performances, I’m a wuss and this sounds too rapey for me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s quite rapey. Actual rapey, fantasy rapey, virtual rapey, flashblack rapey. And I’m probably missing some.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And would probably be just as riveting without all the repetitions, in the hands of someone who didn’t think that if one ‘rapey’ was good, then an entire movie of them would be even more gooder.
LikeLike
Me too. If we wanted to watch ‘rapey’ all we have to do is watch the news. 😦
LikeLike
May not catch this one right away, but am interest. Verhoven, eh? Hmm.
LikeLike
Ahem, VerhoEven.
LikeLike
I’m not too into seeing a rape on screen in explicit detail and not over and over again even if the acting is great. It is not a light frothy film that’s for sure.
LikeLike
I think this might be a tad too grim for me even with the revenge angle and Paul Verhoeven. I’m guessing that Michèle doesn’t somehow become part businesswoman, part machine and going rogue by taking down the bad guys…
LikeLike
Pingback: Oscar Nominations 2017 | ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES