Isabelle Huppert plots one Elle of a nasty revenge
When is a cheapie sex thriller not a cheapie sex thriller? When it stars Isabelle Huppert, pictured. That’s the conclusion you come to after watching Elle (18) At heart it’s a tale of vengeance. Videogame entrepreneur Michèle (Huppert) is violently raped in her home. For reasons that gradually become clear, she doesn’t call the police. Instead, she works out who the villain is and brings things to a nice, eye-for-an-eye-style finish. But while you’re watching the film, the story is nowhere near as comprehensible. Huppert makes Michèle so unreadable that it’s hard to know what she thinks she’s about. Despite the classy frocks and fittings – and the presence of Beethoven and Rachmaninoff on the soundtrack – Elle is as taste-free a zone as you’d expect from Paul Verhoeven, the brains behind such extravagant vulgarities as
Showgirls and Basic Instinct. But despite Elle’s overwhelming unpleasantness, this is a thriller with no suspense, let alone dread. Huppert is as frigid and fascinating as ever but no matter how gloriously ambiguous her performance, she’s lip-sticking a pig. Can’t wait another fortnight for Christopher Nolan’s take on Dunkirk? BBC’s Bafta-winning 2004 docudrama of the same name (15A) should satisfy your needs.
Narrated by Timothy Dalton, this three-part epic is a masterclass in the stitching together of newsreel footage with theatrical reconstruction. Look out for Benedict Cumberbatch in one of his earliest screen performances.
Yet more World War II memories in The Sorrow And The Pity
Marcel Ophúls’ documentary about the collaboration between France’s Vichy government and the Nazis. Powerful and thought-provoking.