Elle is a demented Rorschach test of the highest degree.

Full Review | Feb 6, 2024

...a trifle underwhelming. It is, nonetheless, very nice to hear from Verhoeven again, and while it’d be wrong to say the film is a comedy — it’s fundamentally a very serious proposition — it’s often a very funny movie...

Full Review | Jan 17, 2023

Isabelle Huppert [gives] a mesmerizing performance in Paul Verhoeven’s provocative Elle.

Full Review | Dec 21, 2022

Verhoeven is the master of this domain. Long may he reign.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 6, 2022

Verhoeven's direction of uncomfortable dinner parties and excruciatingly tense scenes of sexual violence wonderfully balance his refined touches with his more provocative sensibilities.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 5, 2022

Huppert is magnificent presenting a character who is sympathetic without being a traditionally nice person. Its a charismatic and intoxicating mix, an emotional grey area we rarely see.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 21, 2022

This is a movie to discover, and feel insulted and astonished by, all on your own. It's the most daring thing you'll see on screen this year.

Full Review | Jan 10, 2022

Wonderfully atmospheric and rather haunting.

Full Review | May 1, 2021

The rape scenes are neither gratuitous nor lingered upon.

Full Review | Mar 8, 2021

It's so deftly and slyly done, you can't not enjoy it even though rape is not a light subject to joke about. Destined to be controversial and definitely a conversation starter, Elle highlights two artists at the top of their game.

Full Review | Feb 14, 2021

Verhoeven's skepticism and his distrust of people, deepened by the political difficulties of the last several decades, have hardened into an inconsistent but generally dark and chilly view of humanity.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2021

It's easy to use words like grotesque, grim and provocative to Underneath its lurid skin is a Hitchcock movie minus the sexual repression. It's up to you to decide if that's a good thing for your sensibilities or not.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2021

A unique and vital movie that executes its problematic narrative and character work with zero timidity. Only a master craftsman like Verhoeven could be this forceful while never being reckless.

Full Review | Jan 4, 2021

Its explicit violence is wrapped in the bowels of a mystery thriller that breaks expectations every time it terrifies without the need to fall into acquiescence. Now the morbidness comes with suspense and dark humor. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 26, 2020

Ultimately, Elle is the kind of movie that makes French cinema still vibrantly relevant.

Full Review | Jun 9, 2020

A layered mystery with a dollop of black comedy, Elle is very wrong in the best way possible.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jan 28, 2020

Elle belongs to Isabelle Huppert and stands out as one of her most seditious portrayals, a considerable feat in lieu of the phenomenal body of work it compares to.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 3, 2019

The biggest virtue of the director Paul Verhoeven is to show complex characters, that are humans and 'grays', whose reactions raise the thriller peels, so we can see the thin sarcasm of their contradictions. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Aug 20, 2019

It's Huppert's unique screen presence and boundless sense of bravery that allows Verhoeven to probe as deeply as he does with Michele's narrative.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.75/5 | Jul 17, 2019

About violence, about religion, about the past, about the bodies. The women's bodies exactly. A violent masterpiece. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 2, 2019