Elles (2011)

dir: Malgorzata Szumowska

In the summer of 1979, Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), a 14-year-old boy living in the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio, has lost his mother in a factory accident. Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard) comes to the wake, but Joe's father, Deputy Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler), takes Dainard away in handcuffs. It is later revealed that Jackson blames Louis for his wife's death because he was absent during his shift and she had to fill in for him.

Cast:

Juliette Binoche Anne
Anaïs Demoustier Charlotte
Joanna Kulig Alicja
Louis-Do de Lencquesaing Patrick
Krystyna Janda Mother
Ali Marhyar Saïd
François Civil Florent
Pablo Beugnet Stéphane
Valérie Dréville Charlotte's Mother
Jean-Louis Coullo'ch Charlotte's Father
Arthur Moncla Thomas
Scali Delpeyrat Charles
Laurence Ragon Colette
Alain Libolt Colette's husband
Nicolas Layani Client
Laurent Jumeaucourt Client
José Fumanal Client
Jenny Bellay Neighbour
Tom Henin Florent's friend
Swann Arlaud Young client
Andrzej Chyra Sadist client
Anaïs Fabre
Mateusz Kosciukiewicz
Martine Vandeville The crous secretary

ty-burr added a review of Elles

Both provocative and muddled, the film's a moody, passive-aggressive tract that's buoyed by superior performances and sunk by its own uncertainties. An alternate title might be "The Joyle... Read the review

ty-burr rated Elles

5 stars

pivic wrote about Elles (7)

Elegantly and intelligently edited, directed and acted film where Binoche plays a grown-up woman with intense personal problems who interviews young women who prostitute themselves, all for a magazine article. Some of the classical music was very in-your-face but the scene where The Knife's "Pass It On" was played, I liked. All in all it paints a portrait on some complexities of life that I haven't seen before.

7 stars

pivic rated Elles

7 stars

mark-jenkins added a review of Elles

Yet Elles has contemporary pertinence. As the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair showed, feminism hasn't significantly mellowed France's macho culture. And sexual predation on young women from... Read the review

mark-jenkins rated Elles

7 stars

joe-williams added a review of Elles

Elles is provocative company, but it leaves us feeling hustled. Read the review

joe-williams rated Elles

7 stars

michael-osullivan added a review of Elles

The acting by Binoche and her two young co-stars is more nuanced than the film deserves. They bring a rich expressiveness and sense of complex inner life to their characters. It's the mov... Read the review

michael-osullivan rated Elles

4 stars

stephen-holden added a review of Elles

In case you have forgotten, all women are prostitutes, and all men are johns. Read the review

stephen-holden rated Elles

5 stars

va-musetto added a review of Elles

Szumowska provides lurid scenes of perverted sex, but she offers no new insight into the sordid world of prostitution and the dangers sex workers face. Nor does she flesh out Charlotte an... Read the review

va-musetto rated Elles

5 stars

rob-nelson added a review of Elles

A typically smart performance by Juliette Binoche isn't enough to keep Elles from drowning in pseudo-intellectual pretension and general banality. Read the review

rob-nelson rated Elles

4 stars

andrew-pulver added a review of Elles

Binoche rises above the lubricious material by giving a thoroughly detailed and committed performance as the journalist. Read the review

andrew-pulver rated Elles

4 stars

jesse-cataldo added a review of Elles

The film is ultimately draining because of the way it handles Anne, stranding a potentially dynamic character in two dueling scenarios, both of which are drab and unsurprising. Read the review

jesse-cataldo rated Elles

5 stars