Elle
2016 · Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Original language: French
- drama
- thriller
The story
When Michèle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving family, all the while becoming engaged in a game of cat and mouse with her stalker.
What it’s like
Cool, clinical surfaces and controlled interiors: Paul Verhoeven's Elle is built from sleek modern Parisian rooms, glass office towers, minimalist apartments, and a restrained palette of greys, whites and muted reds, with a fondness for symmetrical framing and long unhurried takes that let tension sit inside an ordinary composition. Light tends toward cool daylight and the hard glow of screens, with flashes of warm Christmas lights and dinner-party candlelight breaking the chill. The score is sparse and icy, mostly silence and a few tense strings, so the sound design, with its clipped footsteps and quiet domestic noise, carries much of the mood. Its vibe is cool, darkly ironic unease, the feeling of watching a woman refuse to be rattled. Violence is brief but very real: an opening sexual assault is shown directly, and later scenes carry menace, cruelty and bitter family conflict, with little gore. The rhythm is deliberate and dry, the tone unsentimental and often blackly comic, and its central arc follows a guarded, controlling woman who keeps her composure while her private life fractures. It suits a late-night, solitary viewing for people who want a provocative, adult thriller that is uncomfortable on purpose, not a gentle or comforting watch.
More films like Elle
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Elleand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
