Movie review: “Elle,” Directed by Paul Verhoeven, 130 minutes
Disclaimer: I admit that I would probably buy a ticket to watch a movie about a a woman sitting on a couch watching TV, if the actress was Isabel Hupert. I’ve never seen her in anything I didn’t really enjoy.
In “Elle”Ms Hupert plays a middle-aged business woman who has always had to deal with monsters. Because she’s such a terrific actress, I was never quite certain whether she was one of the victims, one of the monsters, a bemused observer, or just somebody who really knows how to cope. Maybe all of it.
How Do You Cope?
In a large sense, we really are surrounded by monsters, just look at American politics for example, and we really do have to cope. How do you cope with monsters? Do you call the police? Do you buy a gun? Do you shrug it off? Do you join them? Perhaps you could start a pornographic video game company and make caricatures of them raping and murdering one another?
If I understood French, I’d probably be completely blown away by the nuances in this film. Even reading the subtitles, I was intrigued. Hupert is a mystery, and she reminds us that so are we all!
–Gene Lantz
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If the murderer’s goal was to advance a military cause, he was certainly a poor strategist. Why shoot up nightclubs? If his goal was to oppose people’s sexual preferences, he didn’t make headway.
genelantz 