Elles (2011) User Reviews

Showcase for Binoche's acting talent

[rubenm · 7/10 · 21 April 2012]

The star of this movie is Juliette Binoche, who plays a reporter for Elle Magazine writing a story about two students earning a living as call girls. She leads the life of a typical bourgeois woman, with a husband and two sons, a big Parisian apartment, design kitchen and expensive clothes. She has everything she wants. But at the same time, her life is shallow and limited. The conversations with the two girls make her realize that there is more to life than she thinks, and she starts to doubt her own values and certainties.

The students confront her with the relativity of the things she takes for granted. 'Do you have a bathroom with a view?', asks the girl who hates the poor quality of life in her working class neighbourhood. 'I guess so, I've never thought about it', answers Binoche's character. And as she says it, she realizes how lucky she is to have a life many can only dream of.

At first, she is shocked by the girls' relaxed attitude towards prostitution. Later on, she realizes that in reality these girls are everything she herself isn't: independent, adventurous, open minded, rebellious, ambitious. Binoche is perfect in the way she expresses the doubts and confusion of her character. 'Elles' is a showcase for Binoche's acting talent.

Polish director Szumowska does a nice job by switching from the girls' sexual encounters with their clients to Binoche's daily routine of making breakfast, cooking dinner and washing clothes. The contrasts between the scenes accentuate the difference in lifestyle of the characters.

Disappointing but some redeeming features

[Felix-28 · 7/10 · 2 March 2013]

I was expecting Juliette Binoche to be as fabulous as she normally is, but she was the disappointment among the three female leads.

To be fair, I think it was the fault of the part, rather than faults in her performance. I think the idea was that her character, the journalist, got so involved in what she was researching and writing that she forgot about her own life and family until the story was finished; but the result was that her character was just a mess.

What I liked about the film was what seemed to be a much more honest and realistic portrayal of the two prostitutes than we normally see. Both were very believable. Both students, one (Anaïs Demoustier as Charlotte) in control of what she was doing, and the other (Joanna Kulig as Alicja) drinking to much and seemingly headed for disaster. Both of them liked sex; Charlotte liked the sex she had with her customers apparently just as much as she liked the sex she had with her boyfriend. You don't see that in Hollywood movies. In Hollywood movies the prostitutes never kiss and they never have orgasms, and they all hate what they're doing. In this film, Charlotte didn't hate it at all, in fact she liked it a lot; whereas Joanna said that she liked it, and seemed to like the physical sensations, but also seemed to hate the idea of what she was doing. That seemed pretty realistic to me.

There were two things that struck me particularly. One was quite early on in the film, when Juliette Binoche asked Charlotte why she kept working. The answer was that the money was hard to give up.

The second was from Charlotte again, and again in answer to a question from Juliette. The question was, what was the worst thing about the work, and the answer was having to tell lies all the time.

Both of those things rang pretty true to me.

So what it comes down to is a more realistic portrayal of prostitution than we normally get, but a rather messy movie with a rather messy central character.

Absorbing Study of Loneliness and Isolation

[l_rawjalaurence · 7/10 · 20 October 2014]

Some of the sequences in Malgorzata Szumowska's film are quite difficult to view - especially the scene where one of the student prostitutes (Anaïs Demoustier) willingly allows herself to be urinated on by one of her clients, or has a champagne bottle thrust into her vagina. These moments are designed to emphasize the pitfalls of the whore's existence - even if both Charlotte and Alicja (Joanna Kulig) manage to make sufficient funds to support themselves in some style during their student lives.

Nonetheless Szumowksa reminds us that we should not judge their decision too harshly. By contrasting their lives with that of well- to-do journalist Anna (Juliette Binoche), who is writing an article for ELLE magazine about their lives, the director suggests that in many ways the prostitutes live a superior existence. They enjoy an independence that is denied to someone like Anna, who has to spend most of her leisure time caring for a feckless husband (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) and her three children. ELLES is full of scenes where Anna is shown working alone in the kitchen, or talking on the phone to a disembodied voice. As the film closes, she is shown silently listening at a dinner party while Patrick and his friends prattle on about various subjects; in the end she grows so frustrated that she simply walks out of the house for a breath of welcome fresh air.

In contrast both Charlotte and Alicja enjoy a considerable degree of independence; they exert power over their (mostly middle-aged) clients, to the extent that they can determine in advance what they will do and what they will not do. The money they earn gives them the spending power to please themselves.

As the film progresses, so we see Anna becoming more and more enamored of the girls' lives. She is shown talking in the park to Charlotte; the two of them become quite close to one another, as denoted through a series of two-shots. While alone with Alicja in Alicija's apartment, Anna partakes of vodka (although claiming that she does not drink), and ends up on a passionate embrace with the younger woman. While alone in her own apartment, Anna pleasures herself in an extended scene, where Szumowska's camera focuses on her face as she gradually comes to orgasm. Sex gives her the kind of power that she can never enjoy either at work or during her family life.

In the end, however, that power proves illusory. The film ends with an extended shot of Anna sitting down to breakfast with her husband and two of her children - an image of familial normality that suggests mental as well as physical imprisonment. Although empathizing with the two girls, she can never enjoy their independence.

ELLES is a thought-provoking piece, shot in deliberately low-key style. Director Szumowska achieves some striking thematic effects, most notably through the use of music that often contrasts with the emotions of the characters shown on screen. At one moment Anna is shown walking morosely about her living-room; on the soundtrack we hear the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony - a homage to death. The grandeur of the music is set against the mundaneness of Anna's life; she would love to improve it, if only she could.

Depressingly bad, loaded with gratuitous porn.

[flickernatic · 2/10 · 22 April 2012]

This film is embarrassing on two levels: first because it's story line is so weak, and second because it ends not with a bang but a whimper. Oh, and there is also the seemingly endless sequence of fleshy scenes that serve to glorify porn and prostitution at one and the same time (the scenes include a sickening rape carried out with a bottle).

The narrative appears to run something like this - A wealthy, materialistic magazine writer, trapped in a dull haute bourgeois lifestyle, sets out to investigate student prostitution. She is soon seduced by the charms of the girls and concludes that 'all men are bastards', including her boring husband, who uses her as a perfect dinner hostess in order to suck up to his boss.

In a climactic scene, she walks out of the dinner party, leaving her husband and her (vile) male guests high and dry. But lo! Does she go off to join the free and easy (and wealthy) student prostitutes in their care-free, hedonistic life? Er, no! In very short order she returns to the breakfast table to serve the orange juice and muesli to her still dull, bourgeois husband and kids. Fin!

To add to the (dis)pleasure, there are a number of odd sequences which seem to have no connection to the already fragile narrative thread: the writer visits and old man in hospital (is it her father?) and gives him a foot massage; she attempts to use a lavatory but finds she 'cannot continue'; she repeatedly tries to close the door of the family refrigerator but it won't close because an item on one of the door shelves has become dislodged.

This unenlightening and unpleasant movie is one to avoid, Ms. Binoche notwithstanding.

(Viewed at The Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK, 21 April 2012)

Sex, Fantasies, Family and Lies

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 26 June 2013]

In Paris, Elle Magazine's journalist Anne (Juliette Binoche) is assigned to write a four-page article about prostitution. Anne is a middle class mother and housewife that lives a routine life in a comfortable apartment with her husband Patrick (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) and her two sons, the teenager Florent (François Civil) and the boy Stéphane (Pablo Beugnet).

Anne contacts the college students and call-girls Charlotte "Lola" (Anaïs Demoustier) and Alicja (Joanna Kulig) and she interviews them. They tell details of their sexual experience with their clients, most of them married and aged enough to be their fathers, who are seeking kinky sex that they do not do with their wives.

In the beginning, Anne is shocked with the humiliations and perversions that the girls are submitted to keep their lifestyles. But soon she realizes how tedious her life is and she fantasizes sexual encounters with their clients. Further, she changes her opinion and attitude towards the girls that have good time in their lives with their independence. But in the end, she wears the society mask and returns to her routine life with her family.

"Elles" is a sensual and erotic drama with the theme of prostitution that has been already explored in other movies. The greatest difference is Juliette Binoche, who is perfect in the role of a bourgeois woman that lives in conflict with herself and her family after discovering a different world through her contact with young whores. The contrast of their lives is well used in the screenplay that alternates the girls having sex with clients and Juliette Binoche cooking, washing and cleaning at home. Inclusive it seems that this actress burned her hand indeed while cooking.

There are scenes very explicit with the sexy and gorgeous French actress Anaïs Demoustier and Polish actress Joanna Kulig that are exploitation and certainly will unpleased many viewers. Last but not the least, the music score with classic is another plus in this movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Elles"

Binoche the only reason to see this disappointing film

[rogerdarlington · 24 November 2012]

Although directed and co-written by a Polish woman (Malgorzata Szumowska), this French-language film has so many of the ingredients that we associate with Gallic art house movies: it is slow and ponderous, the narrative is fractured, there is smoking, drinking, and eating, there is sex but much of it is sordid or sad or sadistic, there are scenes which are simply inexplicable, and the conclusion is utterly unresolved and even senseless.

Juliette Binoche plays Anne, a journalist with "Elle" researching an article on how students fund their education through prostitution. Apparently she only interviews - repeatedly - two students: the French girl Charlotte (Anaïs Demoustier) and the Polish girl Alicja (Joanna Kulig). Neither hooker seems as unsettled by the lifestyle she has chosen as Anne appears unbalanced by the interviews. It is all rather disjointed and unsatisfactory and the only reason for seeing the film is the wonderful work of the ever-impressive Binoche.

Sexual revolution happened more than 50 years ago.

[aequus314 · 2/10 · 28 January 2013]

Elles is the first movie I've seen that does nothing for the conviction behind its original premise--feminism. On the contrary; it reinforces the notion that women are sex objects with erotic capital, and concludes with the lead character desperate for regression.

In this fifth feature by Polish director Małgorzata Szumowska, lead character Anne (Juliette Binoche) ultimately conforms to gender roles dictated by society: mother, wife, house wife, cook, journalist, bed partner, fellatio provider.

Set against picturesque Paris; we see Anne living in modern, hectic existence with a husband and two troubled teenagers. When her family departs for work and school in the morning, Anne redirects her energy towards freelance journalism for Elle magazine. She is midway through an article about young women in the sex industry and two students are being anonymously profiled.

Here, Szumowska combines two narrative structures: interview flashbacks where Charlotte and Alicja recount how they fell into sex work; subjective perspective as Anne receives new insights from the girls. As the plot unfolds, we notice a gradual change in Anne's attitude towards sexual freedom and a glaring difference emerging from her private and professional lives.

Charlotte (Anaïs Demoustier) is a sweet-natured college student struggling to make ends meet. Unable to cope with part-time work demanding long and irregulars hours; she is drawn to the lucrative income and flexible hours. Alicja(Joanna Kulig) is Polish and a new character to the city; without sufficient funds from her family, securing basic food and lodging are left to her own devices.

Both women are typical victims with sob stories: they fell into the industry out of limited financial means, but emerge sexually liberated and continue out of want. By virtue of proximity; Anne bonds with Alicja and frustrations with her own circumstances grow, culminating in neurotic epiphany during a dinner party at home.

Some controversial films (Irreversible, I Stand Alone) depict graphic scenes because they are designed to enhance complexity in their narratives, Elles isn't one of them. Its original synopsis promises women's empowerment, freedom and liberation--but aesthetic patterns say otherwise. There are explicit imageries depicting sexual encounters by Charlotte and Alicjia executed without coherence to the emphasis on social-emotional variables claimed by Szumowska.

Sexual revolution occurred more than fifty years ago; yet the film is set in one of the most developed cities among metropolitan states. Granted things are still plausible within the context of helpless migrants--it speaks for the level of reality Elles operates on. That characterizations reinforce not only stereotypes, but misinformation surrounding the "bleak and reluctant lives" of sex workers further disconnects to the point of retrogression.

The range of "secrets" explored in Elles are extraordinarily obvious, narrow and misdirected; honest performances are also stymied by distasteful direction. Joseph Kosma's Les feuilles mortes (literally "The Dead Leaves")may have you humming away in irony when the credits finally begin to roll.

cinemainterruptus.wordpress.com

Erotic lifestyles

[stensson · 7/10 · 24 March 2012]

According to some reports, great many female students in France financed their studies from prostitution. This film starts from this report. Juliette Binoche plays the journalist who interviews two of these girls. Many times.

She tries to analyze it all from a cold professional view, but finds that she is the one who changes and maybe also gets analyzed. The girls tell her they are abused sometimes, but Binoche is the one who takes the biggest injuries.

Interesting film about "Western morals" declining more and more in all ways, since we're not interesting in sharing profits like we used to. But the film is a little cold and and analyzing, just like a professional journalist should be.

Unsettlingly bad

[vivelafrance59 · 1/10 · 24 August 2012]

Perhaps, I was expecting something else but I found this film profoundly disconnected and disconnecting, with the main character (Binoche) being annoyingly neurotic.

The film does not really question family life and values, it is just a kaleidoscopic array of scenes. Binoche is surprisingly bad, at least I did not like her at all in this role.

The beauty and candor of one of the two young prostitute was the best thing in the film, a beauty that life is meant to spoil. However, the crudeness of the sex scenes does not achieve what was meant to, it is just gratuitous at times.

I would not recommend this pretentious film in a million years to anybody!

Sex, more a factor in play here

[videorama-759-859391 · 6/10 · 30 March 2015]

We've seen similar films dealing with the subject of student prostitution, so when coming to view this, it's a tired watch. It's been all done before. The movie starts where we're further into the story, where journalist, Binoche, who carries the film in a great if bold performance, interviews two young beautiful girls, selling and indulging in sex with older men, kind of bringing much similarity, I would say to that later Art house film, Young And Beautiful, which I haven't yet seen. There are some truly hot sex scenes in this film, from our two lasses, one featuring a middle aged guy getting into Demoustier's lacey panties, and boy, does she want it. Slowly disassociating herself from her family, as well as having problems with the fridge door, Binoche immerses and loses herself into this life, becoming good friends with both girls, causing her to privately masturbate, and give hubby something he hasn't had in a while, where the film suddenly ends. The films fault, like Binoche losing herself, the film loses it's intentions, handling of story, where the movie shallowy touches on the subject, and doesn't go into enough depth of the girl's backgrounds, like why they do it, and what really has led em to this point, where meeting mommy of one of the girls, was at least something. But the film gets more caught up in the sex between call girl and client, which is the film's real failing. This was angrily disappointing in one sense, as the end credits rolled. It's Binoche's film, though. Watch it for her, the film's only strong savior.

I guess somebody just assumed that a French-speaking film with prostitutes in it would automatically strike the audience as artistic

[Bob A-2 · 4/10 · 10 June 2012]

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.

Good film

[r-pattison · 9/10 · 7 December 2012]

I have just watched "elles" and wasn't expecting much after reading some pretty poor reviews. However, despite its subject matter, this is not the gratuitous sub-porn that some would have you believe. It is more intelligent and sensitive than that. It's also far from trivial.

As usual (and as most have conceded) Juliette Binoche is terrific. Her masturbation scene reminded me of Ingrid Thulin's in The Silence.

I also thought that a nice touch was the Spider-Man toy in the laundry room, that JB removes from the basket and places on top off the washer and tumble dryer. It gets in the way, and falls back into the basket. And you can see/feel that this has probably been done so many times before.

I loved this film and feel it has more to offer upon repeated viewings.

Enjoyable but weak

[paul2001sw-1 · 6/10 · 15 October 2014]

In the enjoyable but ultimately silly film, a wealthy Parisian journalist interview a couple of students who are earning their way through college working as prostitutes. Expecting to pity them, she finds herself envying (and fancying) them; the film makes the point that interviewer and interviewees alike inhabit a world that is full of rich men and luxurious surroundings, but the working girls have a measure of sexual excitement and control lacking in the married life. Now I can accept that not every prostitute is drug addicted, enslaved and so on: but it's hard to believe in the romantic and glamorous way their lives are depicted. Interestingly, this is a film directed by a woman, and starring three women as well: clearly the stereotype of the high-class hooker has enduring appeal to both sexes.

Well Below the Value Line

[samkan · 3/10 · 17 September 2013]

There's a fine line between art and trash, between demonstration and exploitation, between film and pornography, etc. As far as this charade goes, it matters not whether that line is a mile thick as ELLES is so clearly in the trash & exploitation category that it cannot even see that line - thick or thin. Nope, there is no "grey" area or overlap between artistic merit and seedy junk. The poor-deprived-misunderstood young girls we are encouraged to see are best observed as vapid, shallow unscrupulous opportunists. One, with vodka inspired rationale, is able to compromise her john pissing into her mouth by the sing-along session shared thereafter. The other, naive, stupid or both, seems genuinely shocked when danger arrives in the form of sodomy. But even more unforgiving is our heroine. Let's see, the investigator/officer/reporter goes underground and -surprise!- becomes sympathetic/understanding/intrigued/influenced by his/her underworld subjects. Nope never been done before, excepting maybe a few hundred times. Pardon my sarcasm. I tried hard to find some merit in ELLES, and I mean that sincerely. I'd have been better off just enjoying the fellatio and sadism. That's all we have here.

OK French "social problem" movie, but perhaps a little exploitative and hypocritical

[lazarillo · 7 September 2013]

This movie, like another recent French movie "Student Services", exposes the apparent current social problem of impoverished Parisian female university students resorting to prostitution. In America movies like this are generally preachy and alarmist and usually relegated to the Lifetime network where they're viewed mostly by bored housewives. I'm not exactly sure WHO these French movies are aimed at though, and they seem a little hypocritical. If you REALLY want to de-glamorize co-ed prostitution should you show quite so many scenes of impossibly attractive French actresses like Deborah Francois (in "Student Services") or Anais Demoustier (in this) having hot, naked, kinky sex? Women might appreciate the social message here, but most men will find it a little hard to concentrate on the message what with all the blood flowing from their brains to their boners. Even the middle-age female protagonist of this movie, a journalist played by Juliette Binoche, is so turned on by audiotapes of the Demnoustrier character's sex sessions that at one point she has to go in the bathroom and pleasure herself. She becomes so obsessed with her "expose" that she neglects her husband and children. She's definitely a strange, and not particularly likable, character.

The movie is also surprisingly kinky. Demoustier's prostitute character has wine bottle inserted in her butt by a sadistic client. Another Polish prostitute has her large breasts urinated on. These scenes aren't graphic, of course, but the fact that they're included at all--combined with a rather muddled moral message--definitely tends to move this toward lurid exploitation.

Binoche is not very good in this, but it might be the character she's saddled with. Demoustier is both sexy and adorable, but doesn't have much of a role, and her character pretty much disappears after the assault with the wine bottle. I didn't dislike this movie, but I prefer the similar "Student Services". It too seems a little at odds with itself message-wise, but it gives the major role to its sympathetic prostitute character. And it's not QUITE so exploitative and hypocritical.

Glacially slow and depressing

[featherstone-witty · 3/10 · 6 August 2012]

Why do 'art' films have to be slow? It appears some film makers forget their actors' faces are many times life size and a discriminating audience are attentive ... like this one. When a point has been made, move on. This seems unfamiliar to this film maker. That's the first point. Point two : yes, the two girls are having paid sex with married men; yes, they are doing things the men's wives possibly don't care to do, but where is the love? There's a conventional assumption that paid sex is gloomy,glum and unreciprocated. Pity. Final point : There's a possible film here : three stories in parallel- each echoing and counter pointing each other. But this didn't happen, except in a superficial way. A serious pity.

French movies with Juliette Binoche +++

[mr-632-599257 · 6/10 · 13 March 2013]

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.

Good movie from director

[dy38493 · 5/10 · 1 April 2020]

Good movie to watch for the scenes some are sex scenes but movie is ok great work from juliette binoche and also some good direction.

Slow burn drama, but very watchable

[paulsmithson-192-243826 · 7/10 · 3 March 2017]

Juliette Binoche leads this excellent cast in a slow burn drama that looks at relationships. Yes, it's overt focus is on the modern day concept of students who are paying their way through college by prostitution, but the main thread that runs throughout the whole movie is Binoche's character's relationship with her husband. Yes, it is slow burn (not unusual for a French movie), but at the same time it is very watchable as every character is, in their own individual way, a stereotype, but in such a way that makes them interesting to observe. I liked the penultimate scene very much. If you enjoy a thoughtful drama then well worth watching.

Whore Is Elle

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 20 April 2012]

Faced with just the title and the name Juliet Binoche the actress is clearly the main - if not only - reason for watching this. If then the dirty-raincoat brigade read a review and note the subject matter then there is a second selling point to be noted. As it turns out both consumer groups are catered to and Binoche weighs in with another outstanding performance without breaking sweat. What is less easy to discern is a point of view; if, as we are led to believe, the number of young French girls happy to combine university seminars with hooking is on the increase, is this a good or a bad thing. Discuss. Journalist Binoche spends the entire film researching an article on the subject which will appear in Elle. She confines her research - at least as far as the film is concerned - to one-on-one interviews with just two hookers who are equally active students. Initially Binoche is inclined to view the girls' lifestyle as humiliating despite assurances from both girls that they more or less enjoy sex - both orthodox and unorthodox - with men mostly old enough to be their fathers and it is clear that it is Binoche who is more inclined to change her lifestyle in the wake of the interviews. Whilst certainly watchable it's difficult to see this one proving durable.

Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere

[Nodriesrespect · 7/10 · 28 November 2014]

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.

Had potential, but ultimately wasted it

[grantss · 4/10 · 5 April 2014]

The movie had potential, but ultimately wasted it. Potential was for an intriguing tale of voyeurism and vicarious living of an author's/researcher's life through the lives of the people she interviews for her work, and ultimately how this affects her.

In reality, the movie goes down this path, but pulls its punches and goes nowhere. For all the nudity and sex, the movie isn't that gritty, ultimately. (The sex and nudity is a bit tame, anyway).

I was expecting a profound ending, but was very disappointed. There is no life changing, just voyeurism.

Solid performance by Juliette Binoche in the lead role. Good support from a cast of unknowns.

Intimate and close but superb.

[jpm-387-613125 · 8/10 · 22 November 2012]

It's a film based around a journalist writing an article about student prostitution and her life as a housewife and it touches on the lives of two prostitutes. It's a strangely intimate story complemented by beautiful music and very erotic scenes. Miss Binoche is superb with all her usual beautiful nuances and command of the screen.

It's a film about the universe of a woman's soul and it's rather compelling. I thought it was great and it lingers with you, its inconclusive and that makes you draw your own conclusions, so the film will be different for everyone. I drew we are all alone and no-one really knows us.

nous sommes toutes des putes

[briefexistance · 10/10 · 24 January 2021]

This has to be the best movie I've seen about the male gaze, from the female's perspective. As a woman, this hits hard and close to home. You don't need to be a sex worker to relate to the stories. "I haven't told anyone about my lifestyle... aren't we all lonely?" "Are you sexy for me?" "The hardest part is the lies" "you have to be more attentive to him".

It's so sad we live in a patriarchal world. Every man can be someone's confidant / husband / friend but he can also be other's abuser. They see us, but not really. Anyone who is not liking this film either they're man or missing the central point of the story.

Not true to life but enjoyable nevertheless.

[nikkd · 8/10 · 21 September 2015]

Juliette Binoche was great in this role. I remember when she came out at the end of the movie and spoke to the crowd. I was lucky enough to be near the front of the theatre.All I can say is Juliette is one classy lady. She spoke about her role with a lot of eloquence. She explained how the movie was in a funny way empowering women. Since the girls she was interviewing were all acting on there own. They were taking charge of there lives and by working as prostitutes they had the freedom to do other things. This movie does have a very serious undertone, and manages to give us a few laughs. But overall the message isn't lost. Interesting story, nicely written, and acted to perfection. This is a thought provoking film that makes you think without making you sit through a documentary.