Elle (18)

four stars

Dir: Paul Verhoeven

With: Isabelle Huppert, Anne Consigny, Laurent Lafitte

Runtime: 131 minutes

HOW rare it is to come out of a cinema and step into a full-blown argument as to what you have just seen. Too many films, chasing the mainstream buck, are content to settle in “Meh” territory, as in, what did you think of that then? “Meh”.

But weeks on from seeing Paul Verhoeven’s thriller Elle at the Glasgow Film Festival I am still having ferocious barneys – mostly with myself – over whether this is a picture that should be praised or condemned. You don’t get that with Beauty and the Beast.

Nor does the star rating system allow for anything in the way of equivocation. What is unarguable about Verhoeven’s controversial picture, however, is that it is a gorgeously styled, exquisitely shot piece with a terrific, Oscar-nominated, performance from Isabelle Huppert at its heart. One thing everyone can surely agree on, like the virtues of motherhood, apple pie, and Apple shares, is that multiple Cesar award-winner Huppert is A Good Thing.

Within seconds of its opening, you can see why Verhoeven’s picture comes complete with an 18 certificate. The setting is a chic home in Paris. The sounds and sights are horrific, the only being present, apart from the two human protagonists, a Burmese cat. Disturbing does not even begin to sum up what is happening.

It is with some surprise, then, that the picture soon cuts to a scene in which the attack victim, Michelle LeBlanc (Huppert) is phoning in an order for takeaway sushi. It is the first, but certainly not the last, occasion in which the screenplay by David Birke, adapted from the novel by Philippe Djian, challenges assumptions about this woman and how she should be behaving after such a trauma.

Here is a complex, shape-shifting character who defies easy categorisation. A woman of a certain age, she is co-owner of a successful video game company making money from the youth market. Implacable towards her enemies, she is still pals with her ex-husband and devoted to her son. Fearless, funny, outspoken, confident, able to laugh in the face of life’s outrages, Michelle is the kind of woman we might all like to be when we grow up.

But even while we admire her, the doubts persist over whether this woman, any woman, would react as Michele does, not just initially but throughout the course of the film. Perhaps that is the point the picture is trying to make. As we learn more about the character, the story tries to answer some of the many questions piling up in the viewer’s mind. We see from Michele’s flashbacks that her response to events is far from clear cut, and that her past has largely determined her present day attitudes. Still, just when you begin to think you might be approaching an understanding of her, the story takes another perturbing twist.

To say that Verhoeven has form when it comes to putting the Burmese cat among the pigeons on sexual politics is like noting Donald Trump is rather fond of an argument. With a cv that includes Showgirls, wherein female empowerment was achieved through that well known means of taking one’s kit off to rock music, to Black Book and Basic Instinct, Verhoeven is a controversialist to some, a gifted chancer to others. Here, at times, he is on typically outrageous form. And yes, the verdict more often than not is that he is, as we say in these parts, “at it”.

It takes quite a performance to still those doubts and keep a viewer watching a story that seems determined to baffle, repel, and terrify. Huppert, however, gives that performance. It is hard to see any other actress who could have handled this role so brilliantly. Huppert inspires confidence, dispels doubts, and keeps the audience on the character’s side right to the (yes, you’ve guessed it) shocking denouement. It is her obvious intelligence, wit, and dignity lighting the way through some very dark valleys, delivering the viewer safely to the other side. Still perturbed, still arguing endlessly with themselves and others, still in the game of being stirred by a movie.