Paul Verhoeven is the master at making stuff that isn’t funny, amusing. He made fascism funny in Starship Troopers, he made secret agents and murder funny in Total Recall, and before you yell at me no I’m not about to say that he makes rape funny, nobody can do that. The sheer fact that anyone would try is completely inappropriate and not what Verhoeven has an interest in doing in Elle. He instead makes each of the characters reactions to such a horrible event, slightly humourous, showing us a dark mirror as to how self absorbed we all get in times of conflict for the people around us. Verhoeven’s work is always about finding the perfect balance of things. Fascism and murder aren’t funny, and neither should be the absurdist ways that people react to assault, but just like Verhoeven’s other work it’s all about that perfect balance. Elle is more of a drama than a comedy, but it is infused with just enough absurdity that it can’t help but feel a little bit funny. With as much high brow disturbing content is present, Verhoeven plays everything just as thin and minimalistic as he always did. People might remember the more overblown nature of his satires like Robocop and Total Recall but in drama Verhoeven was kind of a straightforward point and shoot dramatist, which oddly isn’t an actual insult to him, It in fact works to his benefit allowing the subtlety of the entire filmmaking style to contrast heavily with the disturbed and uncomfortable themes of rape, death, psychopathy, and religion. There are moments of great melodrama in Elle that are played incredibly straight just because Verhoeven doesn’t allow them to go off the cuff. The film not treating some developments as scary, even though they should be and still working brings up the absurdity of everything to the point that it’s hard not to make an exclamation of “Dear Lord” or a nasally short laugh. Verhoeven has a cast that is all game to go crazy on screen and just trust him to make sure that the movie doesn’t fly the heck off the rails, and when Isabelle Huppert is on screen blowing through a psychopathic character of hidden depths like she’s done it forever (which she’s actually been doing this kind of ball busting character forever) any restraint from the director is a good idea. This does become a little problem as this is Huppert’s movie and while the other characters play huge roles the subtlety of the direction creates a weird contrast in which Huppert basically sticks out of the screen and everybody else is just there. Each of these characters are eventually satisfied with arches that create the world of the film though so the short drags in the middle act can all be forgiven. If there is one other thing off here Elle meanders a bit. That’s not a big problem because it’s all engaging meandering, but it’s still a little lengthy at times. Elle is an effort that has a lot of problematic stuff in it but it’s all played off with ease. Verhoeven is thankfully back to his great exploitation/genre film well and Isabelle Huppert cements herself as one of the best and most committed actresses of all time. I give Elle a 9.5 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |