Elle (2016)

Too much of everything

Simply A Masterpiece

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie is not a Marvel production and not good for everyone with medium IQ too! specially not for guys who are looking for stupid soft romantic tales or anything sentimental or even porno stuff! Elle is about the complexion of the human soul, one of the best in Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece list. Watch again with open mind and use your brain before bad judging about that brilliant movie.

We're in for a shock. A rape from the get go, we expect a rape story. Not at all. It is a psychopathic character story. The woman victim is acquointed to violence, has issue with the police, and is strong. We get it. The guy might have been lucky to get her by surprise. But this is a french film and it is not going to be your regular hero's revenge at all! Hilarious at times, dramatic at times, our bunch of psychopaths keeps us guessing. Excellent!

I ended up writing an essay about how much I hated this movie and IMDb forced me to trim my review down. I started again, but let me be as concise and clear as I can be: don't watch this movie. It's so awful.1. It makes no sense at all. The characters are capricious and not in a fun, loving way. They are frustratingly stupid and moronic. You cannot connect with any character or feel empathy for them. I don't feel sorry for Michele basically asking to be raped. If she goes down into a basement alone and desires sex (as she admits at the end of the movie, getting laid was part of her goals), I can't feel sorry for her when she is treated badly. I lost any sense of feeling sorry for the character.2. The worldview is negative and idiotic. Everyone is apparently deaf, dumb and blind. Her mother ends up dying... just like that. The baby born two times darker than Vincent doesn't strike him as odd. It's silly and stupid.3. It won't leave you feeling educated, inspired or happier. It's a waste of time. You won't get anything but a massive headache, which I did get. I took a painkiller (wish I was joking), because the headache from that movie was intensely painful.I hope that no one wastes their time on this trollop. It's the worst movie I have seen to date. Again, I wish I was joking, but I have never seen anything this bad. This takes the cake, except the creepy neighbor will probably rape the cake according to this movie's standards.There are good French films out there if you want to find something fun to watch on Netflix. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Forgive me for feeling a frisson of excitement whenever Paul Verhoeven makes a new movie; after all, titles are few and far between these days, and his last I saw, BLACK BOOK, was a well-regarded masterpiece. Not so ELLE, a somewhat convoluted psychological thriller based around the unappetising subject matter of rape. In the hands of the expert director, ELLE becomes a beautifully shot and well-crafted movie, one which remains enjoyable despite the darkness of the subject matter. Isabelle Huppert gives a finely-judged turn as the put-upon woman who reacts unexpectedly when she is raped in her own home one night. The narrative mixes together family drama, mystery, and psychology of an unusual depth, with the end result a film which subverts expectations and proves challenging and unique.