A successful video game company executive (Isabelle Huppert) is assaulted and raped by a masked intruder at her suburban Paris home which she responds to in a shockingly casual fashion as she goes about her daily life dealing with her hack writer ex-husband dating a younger woman, her debutante mother shacked up with a gigolo, a nincompoop son fathering a child that isn't his, the launch of her latest game, continual harassment from her attacker, and the potential parole of her serial killer father, whose crimes she potentially played a significant role as an adolescent. Paul Verhoeven's Elle is a dark, twisted, nihilistic thriller which surprisingly manages to ultimately humanize its main character thanks in large part to a superb, underplayed performance from the peerless Huppert.
*** 1/2 out of ****
