Clevercell Very disappointing...

Lawbolisted Powerful

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

JoeKulik Malgorzata Szumowska's Elles (2011) is a film with high artistic merit.Something that didn't agree with me as I watched the film were the rather explicit sexual scenes between the college girl prostitutes and their clients. I thought these sexually explicit scenes were purely gratuitous and added nothing to the story, and probably detracted from the artistic merit of the film. However, at the very end of the film, the sex scenes suddenly fell into place for me and I was able to understand that they were integral to the story, and did, in fact, complement the whole artistry of the film.However, the one weak aspect of the film that still doesn't agree with me is Anne's (Juliette Binoche) appearance, that of her hair and her face. For most of the film, except for the dinner party, Anne looked downright haggard. Her hair was just a mess and looked like she stuck it a clothes dryer. Her face not only was lacking make up, it appeared that they did something to her face to make it look even more pale, and even corpse-like. It was not a good look to me, and I have no idea what effect the filmmaker was going for there but it didn't work for me. Anne needn't have been "dolled up", but she didn't need that "fishmonger" look that they gave her either.The film, through a non-linear, and even fragmented narrative successfully juxtaposed the realities of a woman having to sell her body for financial survival with the woman's role in a standard domestic setting. As Anne alluded to her husband toward the end of the film, the social norms and the morality of our culture put all women in somewhat of a position to sell their sexuality for success in their lives, in one form or another.The cinematography in this film is rather stunning, and the radical editing was appropriate for the overall dramatic effect of the film.This film, for me, is one where the viewer best reserve his judgment until the film is finished. After viewing this whole film, it is easier to discern that it is more than simply the sum of its parts.

Dries Vermeulen Though uneven, this is an interesting erotic drama in which Polish documentary filmmaker Malgorzata Szumowska (who would proceed with the scalding indictment of the Catholic Church's outdated views on homosexuality and the enforced celibacy among its clergy with 2013's IN THE NAME OF) honestly attempts to shed unsensational light on the phenomenon of female students paying their tuition moonlighting as prostitutes. The movie's greatest strength lies in its refreshingly matter of fact approach to potentially scabrous sexual situations which are presented in a fairly graphic yet never gratuitous fashion.Whenever the film focuses on the trials and tribulations of its young protagonists then, blue collar grant student Charlotte a/k/a "Lola" (the wonderfully expressive Anaïs Demoustier, currently wowing audiences worldwide in François Ozon's THE NEW GIRLFRIEND) and Polish exchange student Alicja (Joanna Kulig from Pawel Pawlikowski's THE WOMAN ON THE FIFTH), it's absolutely riveting with both actresses turning in fearless performances that go way beyond shedding their clothes. Where it goes off the rails however is in its long stretches devoted to upper middle class journalist Anne, played by the venerable Juliette Binoche, who's doing an in-depth piece for French women's magazine Elle (hence the title) on the very subject the film addresses, gaining growing awareness and self-knowledge in the process. Anne's not a terribly compelling character and that's hardly the fault of Binoche who delivers another perfectly professional performance to supplement her vast resumé. Presumably, Szumowska intended this ultimately rather dreary personage as something of an audience stand-in for her intended middle class demographic who can't possibly be so sheltered in this day and age as to know next to nothing about how the internet intervenes in people's personal (read : sexual) lives.So we get endless scenes of Anne's being confronted by the dreariness of her idle existence, stuck in a loveless marriage with kids careening out of control due to parental indifference. The director, who has already shown such confidence in handling the superior sub-plots involving the two "test cases", manages to hit all the wrong notes when it comes to the supposed "meat" of the movie, culminating in a pair of misguided set-pieces as Binoche desperately tries to reconnect with a sexuality long buried beneath the strenuous demands of work and social relations. First there's a sad bathroom floor masturbation bit, suggested rather than explicitly shown (but pretty disheartening none the same), followed by Anne's drunken advances on her estranged husband in the wake of a disastrous dinner party for the boss and his wife. An open ending shows the family at the breakfast table, sunlight streaming through the windows, talking to one another and passing the food around, somehow suggesting that everything will be alright from now on.The emptiness of such scenes is happily countered by the largely guilt-free sexual scenarios Charlotte and Alicja first shock and then tempt Anne with. Szumowska admirably attempts to sidestep clichés, extending to an understanding approach to their male participants, generally presented as decent human beings equally undeserving of stigmatization as the women who cater to their demands and occasionally experience pleasure in the process. A particularly clever touch is provided by Charlotte's passionate and mutually pleasurable lovemaking to a handsome young man whom we expect is her previously mentioned but as yet unseen boyfriend. When he rises from the bed to get dressed, he leaves a wad of bank notes by her pillow. When we are subsequently introduced to the "real" boyfriend with whom she's about to move in, their allegedly "superior" relationship already appears beyond repair.From the look and feel of the movie, you would never guess this was made by a Polish director as it has that super "soigné" and slightly precious sheen that characterizes about 90 per cent of present day French cinema, easy on the eyes but wholly unadventurous. Occasionally, this will create a jarring juxtaposition such as when Alicja receives an out of the blue golden shower in one of the movie's many immaculately styled apartment settings. The music, incorporating several popular classical selections (Beethoven's 7th...again !), likewise seems designed to lull comfortably off theater patrons into a soothing sense of "salon" social awareness by offering them a glimpse from a safe distance of how the other half lives.

Lucy Fear Juliette Binoche, a amazing actress, she can play and probably have played all kinds of roles, and makes this movie lift at least +2.French movies are always a pleasure to watch. The stories never sweet and Black and white (as in American movies) and leaves a lot to the viewer to interpret.The film highlights a more occurring phenomena in todays society where young "normal" women turns to prostitution to supports their life. The film takes a objective view although some of the writer's views shines through.Its is definitely a film I would recommend, if you are after more than dumb entertainment.

Robert Armstrong The mainstream middle-class person decides to investigate some aspect of demi-monde living, in this case prostitution, and finds herself being caught up in its irresistible fascination and reconsidering how she views her own identity. Did the filmmakers really think that there was something here that an audience hadn't seen before? With minor variations it's been done with murder, mental illness, gambling and drug addiction -- a half-dozen such films come to mind easily -- not to mention alternate lifestyles that may not be wrong in themselves but are nonetheless labeled "fringe-dwelling," so what exactly is new here?Juliette's character says she doesn't drink, but suddenly relents and shortly afterward is drinking everyone else under the table. Someone at the production end apparently just assumed that he/she understood the teatotaler's mindset and had the character flip abruptly on a moral resolve of this magnitude. If, rather, the character is a recovering problem drinker or even alcoholic, should not this little character detail have taken priority in what's really wrong with her life?Fantasy sequence where main character imagines herself surrounded by all the male customers described by the prostitutes she interviewed is blatant and way too concrete.One could call the film character-driven perhaps: that these actors in these roles seem to have plausibility in being family and/or forming friendships. If the film were genuinely about something the audience needed to see then these would be the actors we'd like to hire.