Most critics respond warmly to Elle, with praise concentrated on Isabelle Huppert’s performance as a woman whose response to rape resists familiar expectations. The reviews repeatedly credit her precision, humour and complexity with holding together Paul Verhoeven’s shifts between psychological suspense, black comedy and social satire. Most find the film disturbing but also unexpectedly funny, and see its handling of desire, power and victimhood as a substantial challenge to the conventions of the rape-revenge thriller.
The disagreement concerns what those provocations achieve, with a broad positive majority and a small but sharply dissenting minority. The Guardian remains conflicted about the film while admiring Huppert’s resolve and commanding presence. The New Yorker rejects the transgressions as false, arguing that the central character becomes a collection of pathological traits rather than a convincing woman acting on desire; it also finds Huppert’s precise performance less distinctive than most critics do.
T
The Times
12 March 2017 · ★★★★★ · Camilla Long
100
The review praises the film as mad, wild, provocative, funny, dark and determined. It singles out Isabelle Huppert's superb performance as a chilled, sexual, driven woman.
The critic calls the film a challenging yet entertaining black comedy that is laugh-out-loud funny and indulges its kinks through a deviously plotted and subversive narrative. It singles out Huppert's marvelous, intuitive performance as one of the best of her career for creating a caustic, contradictory anti-victim who relishes pleasure and power.
The critic highlights Isabelle Huppert's multifaceted, mercurial performance as the key to making the provocative story work, portraying a woman who refuses to be defined or devastated by trauma and takes back agency in surprising ways. It is intensely troubling yet fiercely feminist, shocking, surprisingly funny, and compelling.
The critic calls it an unmissable shocker driven by Isabelle Huppert's stupendous, charismatic performance that embodies the entire film, showing a formidable woman who refuses to be a victim or defined by others after a brutal rape. The story surprises and thrills while exploring her strength of will and insolence in a provocative French context.
Verhoeven's film is a gripping whodunit and wickedly droll comedy of manners that confronts the audience with a brutal assault and then delivers psychological suspense. Isabelle Huppert delivers a masterful, enthralling performance that upholds and improves her reputation.
The critic finds it suspenseful and unsettling from start to finish, an audacious and irony-laced tale with a tour de force performance from Huppert that is just plain fun to watch.
The critic praises the film's bold exploration of the ambivalence of pleasure and desire, noting how it inhabits the maddening contradictions of a woman's response to rape without shame or repression. It singles out Huppert's rigorous, seductive performance and the way the film turns misogyny into a mockery through feminine power and fantasy.
The film is a masterpiece of suave perversity that scrambles assumptions about its central rape-revenge premise through genre shifts and ambiguity. Isabelle Huppert's astonishing performance as the protagonist provides the film's fascination and coherence.
The critic praises Paul Verhoeven and Isabelle Huppert as being at the top of their game in a complex film that sidesteps every cliché of the rape-revenge genre, handling its black comedy, tortuous relationships, and fearless central performance with skill.
High-risk material yields unexpected rewards in this remarkable rape-revenge drama, a possible career high for Verhoeven that is knowingly incendiary but remarkably cool-headed. It centers on another of Isabelle Huppert's staggering psychological dissections in a complex, compassionate, often corrosively funny examination.
Elle emerged as an unlikely press favorite at Cannes, a wry and playful comedy of manners about a woman’s unusual response to rape. Huppert’s impish performance keeps the heroine’s motivations a source of mystery and comedy; the film is also Verhoeven’s most tender.
The critic describes it as the most Verhoeveny film yet for its button-pushing transgression and delight in risky territory, highlighting Isabelle Huppert's fierce, multifaceted performance as the standout element.
The critic calls it a sly, caustic social critique that teases the viewer with every double-edged frame, noting that Huppert and Verhoeven reunite to potent effect in this provocative yet substantive work.
Verhoeven stress-tests political correctness by blending rape and blithe amorality in a tale of sex, lies and video games. The laughs come from the contradiction between outward propriety and inner animalism.
10 March 2017 · Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López
70*
The critic sees the film as far deeper and more disquieting than a standard rape-revenge thriller, praising its complex psychological portrait of Michèle and Verhoeven's invitation to enjoy her morally dubious behaviour.
The critic describes the film as a tastefully twisted mid-to-late-life crisis thriller that is both lasciviously dark and rebelliously light on its feet. It highlights Isabelle Huppert's performance as a woman who fights back with authority, mockery, and pepper spray in a perverse story of resilience and freedom.
The critic remains conflicted about the film overall but is in awe of Isabelle Huppert's performance as Michèle. They single out her steely resolve and indomitable presence as making her the author of her own story.
The film presents phony sexual transgressions that muddy rather than challenge conventions, turning its protagonist into an anecdotal pathological figure rather than a strong woman acting on desire. Huppert's performance is precise but not distinctive.
The critic calls it one of Verhoeven’s very best: darkly unsettling, blackly funny and thought-provoking. Isabelle Huppert delivers a peerless, fiercely intelligent performance as the complex central character who refuses to behave as society expects.
Verhoeven returns with a genre-bending, daringly original film that is a multi-faceted, endlessly engaging, masterful success. The tonal balancing act is held together by a dazzling, powerhouse performance from Isabelle Huppert.
The critic praises the film's provocative dark comedy and complex thriller elements while noting its divisive nature. They single out Isabelle Huppert's remarkable, complex performance as the standout element that grounds the story.
Huppert dominates this complex, multi-toned thriller that winds through psychological suspense, black comedy and lifestyle drama. It is a study of victimhood and strength without sentimentality, and a corker.
The critic finds the film a deeply disturbing yet engrossing work that probes power dynamics and retribution through its provocative premise. Huppert's layered, assured performance as the resilient survivor who refuses to be defined by victimhood is singled out as the standout element.
Verhoeven has made a comedy about rape and a perverse comment on female sexuality and patriarchy that is queasily hilarious and breathtakingly defiant. The incredible, irreplaceable central performance from Isabelle Huppert makes the mass of contradictions cohere.
Ordered by the weight we give each publication, then by score. Scores are normalised to 100; * means inferred from an unrated review. Summaries are ours, not quotations; follow the links for the reviews themselves. How we rate
