By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Anne Consigny | Charles Berling | Christian Berkel | Isabelle Huppert | Jonas Bloquet | Judith Magre | Laurent Lafitte | Virginie Efira
Country: belgium, france, germany
Year: 2016
Running time: 130
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3716530/reference
Kyle says: “Recipient of dozens of international awards including the César Award, Film Independent Spirit Award, Nerw York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress, Isabelle Huppert is a virtual legend among contemporary actors: her work can be wondered at in films by Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Bertrand Tavernier, Maurice Pialat, Diane Kurys, Benoît Jacquot, Michael Haneke, Christoph Honoré, Patrice Chéreau, and on this film, Paul Verhoeven. At the NYFF Q & A, he stated that he frequently forgot to say ‘Cut!’, so compelling and surprising did he often find Huppert’s acting choices. She has been surprising audiences with her fearlessness for forty years, and as Michèle Leblanc in ELLE she gives one of her greatest performances. She is a woman who refuses to respond to victimhood, as she engages in a game of cat and rat with a rapist rather than report the crime to police. She is the CEO of a video game company in which she appears uninterested, and the daughter of a jailed serial killer in whose fate she is emotionally vested. Her motivations almost always are mysterious and sly in this lurid comedy of manners. Huppert deftly engages us in every terrible moment that is about to happen, as she enters and exits rooms and plot developments. This is the creative process at its very apex, acting that truly captures the essence of pity and terror.”