Elle

Podobné Caché de Haneke était plus mystérieux et tendu. Mais le retour de Verhoeven (s'appuyant principalement sur la forme) vers le drame visuellement brut et psychologiquement intime, reposant uniquement sur les acteurs, est rafraîchissant. Personne n'est normal ici, et le personnage principal est une reine des monstres. Nous ne ressentons pas de sympathie pour ce qui lui est arrivé, mais nous sommes curieux de voir comment elle se débrouillera avec son démon inattendu tout en restant impassible envers tous et tout. Et comment leur prochaine interaction se déroulera. Je regrette le ton humoristique qui allège le sujet grave et l'exploration du personnage principal complexe. Mais c'est le style unique du réalisateur qui rend le film singulier. Ce qui est important. Je donne une quatrième étoile pour une direction parfaitement cohérente. Je mentionne Haneke ici non pas par hasard, et le nom de Polanski appartient également ici. Et c'est une compagnie plus que convenable pour un créateur de blockbusters hollywoodiens. (29/11/2016)

Running time is excessively long (especially the third quarter is a bit short of breath), but otherwise it's a good old psycho and perverted ambivalent "Verhoeven movie" based on the suffocating erotic tension of the pathological relationship and (not cheap!) controversy touching several genres, which traditionally uses seemingly incompatible topics. Although it is not for everyone, I would still recommend it to everyone. If for nothing else, then for the enchanting super-performance of Isabelle. Something like this has been seen a few times in a decade and who knows, maybe even less than that. (15/10/2016)

In this one, Isabelle Huppert portrays a very arrogant woman for whom nothing is sacred and who is literally willing to walk over dead bodies to get what she wants. And since there is really nobody to root for in this film, I as the viewer was left at least to enjoy the psycho thriller atmosphere that the movie really had. But on top of that, the movie lasted for more than two hours, which definitely isn’t a plus in this case. (21/02/2017)

Verhoeven's spectacular return to the top league - and at the same time a slap in the face to all childish provocateurs who think that the more perverse the scenes they put on the screen, the deeper they go. Paul made a black, scathing and extremely cynical variation on a rape-revenge movie, which is also a brutal comedy about an incredibly manipulative lady and one very specific therapy. Isabelle Hupert's magnetizing performance, precise directing (the amount of positions that this film deftly connects is a rather unprecedented thing), an extremely precise depiction of perversion and ordinary violence of interpersonal relationships. Were it not for the slightly naive and jerky gaming plane, which refers to the cause of gamersgate and sexism, it would be top notch. But even so, this one of the most inspiring films of the year and best films of this year's Cannes. [Cannes 2016] (21/05/2016)

Easily the best written, best acted, and unfortunately the most visually memorable Verhoeven. The camera and editing have no face, the colors are washed out, it comes into focus automatically in motion, making it look like a fakin contemporary Dardenni, which please don’t mistake for praise. There's also an end to Verhoeven's cramming as much information as possible into a single shot, and it may be a bit of the reason why the film's other components are otherwise almost brilliant. Isabelle Huppert plays flawlessly and distinctively one of the best written characters I've perhaps ever seen. She's familiar as a mother, employee, lover, and sadistic acquaintance, yet she's utterly unpredictable in every scene. Verhoeven doesn't usually like to let actors improvise (after things got out of hand in Flesh+Blood), but Huppert reportedly adapted the role quite a bit because she didn't know what to do with the character. Her performance, then, is the pure essence of when three strong and experienced characters blend into one actor to create something as elusive yet real as the protagonist here. The best male-bashing film far and wide, which as a rule the current "strong women (TM) creators" of Twitter can't even come close to. The ambiguous Verhoeven, not giving us easy answers (if any), will be sorely missed in the binary age. (05/05/2021)