Paul Verhoeven is back in a major way this year, teaming with one of the finest actresses in cinema, Isabelle Huppert. One of the highest-praised films of Cannes, Elle follows a successful businesswoman who is attacked and then enacts revenge in a cat-and-mouse game. With it set for a U.S. release in November, along with screenings at TIFF and NYFF, Sony Classics have released the first domestic trailer.
We said in our review, “Elle would be unimaginable without Huppert, who delivers a performance of such virtuosity that she turns what is essentially a raving sociopath into one of the most alluring protagonists in recent memory. Beautiful, refined, fiercely intelligent, and twisted to the core, her character is a synecdochic encapsulation of the film itself. Following her attack, Michèle sweeps up the shards of glass from the floor, takes a bath, and, the next day, goes back to work as if nothing had happened. At dinner with her friends a few days later, she casually mentions the rape and is surprised at their concern: it’s not a big deal, she insists, so let’s move on.”
Check out the trailer below.
When Michelle, 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 her 75-year-old sex kitten mother, her imprisoned mass murderer father, her spoiled and immature son, her ex-husband and her lover, all with the same icy equanimity. This is the approach she brings to the situation when it appears that her assailant is not finished with her. As the mysterious stalker hovers in the shadows of her life, taunting her, Michelle cooly stalks him back. What emerges between Michelle and her stalker is a kind of game, a game that soon spirals out of control.
Elle hits theaters on November 11.