Review of Elle

Elle is an unpredictable, messed up thriller with an very uneasy theme throughout. For me the biggest highlights were Isabelle Huppert's performance and the unpredictable, uncompromising depictions of sexuality. The issues i've had with this film though were mostly the dialogue and the unnecessary and absurd subplots such as the Michelle's father backstory and the whole Vincent's girlfriend thing. To start with the first one, it really takes away from the tension and the seriousness of the plot to have surreal cheap gags(?) like him killing himself just to not to have to talk to his own daughter. I mean he literally killed about a dozen people and lived with it for another 30 years or so but its his daughter visiting him that gets him to be desperate enough to hang himself?come on movie. The vincent thing is really predictable and clichéd , the scene when he first sees his son is straight out of a My Name Is Earl episode, and his girlfriend is your standart stereotype of annoying, unfair, demanding and cheating girlfriend. At the end of the day i find it very hard to believe that any of the characters in the film(except michelle) could exist in the real world as they seem very cartoonish and one note. All in all was a decent film even with some serious flaws. 7/10