Paul Verhoeven likes to stir things up, and stir things up he did “bigly” with his latest movie, Elle. I knew that some of you just wouldn’t be able to countenance the idea of a rape victim’s attachment to her attacker, and I get that. Still, Isabelle Huppert nailed that role – no shock there – and made it seem twistedly plausible.
The remarkable thing to me was the number of genuine laugh-lines in this black comedy. This is audience manipulation at its finest.