Line #72 Film/Elle


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elle_4.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:The American poster is innocuous. [[CoversAlwaysLie The film is not.]]]]
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4	''Elle'' is a 2016 [[FrenchFilms French]] PsychologicalThriller film directed by Creator/PaulVerhoeven and written by David Birke, [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] the 2012 novel ''Oh...'' by Philippe Djian.
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6	Michèle Leblanc (Creator/IsabelleHuppert), founder of a successful video game company, is raped at her home by an unknown assailant. Events from her past [[PoliceAreUseless make her distrustful of police]], so instead of reporting the incident to the authorities, she tries to discover the identity of her rapist on her own.
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8	----
9	!!This film provides examples of:
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11	* AmicableExes: Richard and Michèle. The former is genuinely concerned about the latter and sometimes comes and checks to see if she's okay.
12	* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler: After Michèle tells Patrick she's going to call the police, she leaves her gate open, implying to Patrick that he should engage in foreplay again. However, Michèle staged it so that Vincent can beat Patrick to death, avenging herself and helping Vincent be a hero.]]
13	* BlackComedy: Although of the darkest, most caustic variety possible.
14	* BrosBeforeHoes: Michèle and Anna banter into the end credits, friends for life, despite the fact that [[spoiler: Anna's husband cheated on her with Michèle.]]
15	* BurgerFool: Vincent, at least in the first half of the film, is a rare non-American instance of this trope.
16	* ButtMonkey: Michèle's ex-husband, Richard, is an alcoholic and a struggling writer. The first misfortune he received was getting his car's bumper broken by Michèle, then his girlfriend's car's front window shattered and he gets pepper-sprayed by Michèle. Later in the film, [[spoiler: His girlfriend broke up with him because she realized she had mistaken him for another author. The author she admired just had a similar name.]]
17	* CallBack: Kevin, one of Michèle's employees who she hired to investigate the person behind the rape animation with her face, discovered a crush video of a woman stomping on roaches. Which refers back to the propaganda scene of children stomping on roaches in ''Film/StarshipTroopers''.
18	* CatScare: Midway through the film, when Michèle thinks the rapist is coming back in the middle of the night.
19	* ChocolateBaby: [[spoiler: Josie's and Vincent's baby.]]
20	* ClingyJealousGirl: Michèle hasn't entirely let go of Richard. While she's quite cordial to Hélène, his girlfriend, in person, when she comes over to her house for the party Michèle secretly plants a toothpick in a snack to be given to her.
21	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Vincent and Josie, for most of the film, especially after the baby is born.
22	** Vincent refuses to accept any suggestion that the baby is not his, despite [[ChocolateBaby the obvious]].
23	* CoolShades: Michèle when out in public.
24	* CrappyHolidays: The film largely takes place during the Christmas season.
25	** During which, we also learn, Michèle's father massacred the neighborhood almost 40 years earlier.
26	* DarkandTroubledPast: In spades. Michèle's troubling backstory is never fully explained.
27	* DinnerAndAShow: The dinner party Michèle hosts for her friends and family goes south when [[ParentWithNewParamour her mother announces she's engaged again, to Michèle's displeasure]].
28	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Michèle's father, when he learns she is finally coming to see him in prison for the first time]].
29	* DrivingQuestion: Who raped Michèle?[[note]]for the first two-thirds of the film[[/note]]
30	* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Michèle manages to kill Patrick in a BatmanGambit, Vincent becomes a hero and GrewASpine in the process, Michèle's father dies in prison, and the epilogue shows her reconciling with Josie and Anna.]]
31	* EmbarrassingOldPhoto: The image of a half-naked, ash-covered Michèle, staring vacantly ahead, that became the signature image in the media of her father's mass-murder spree.
32	* {{Fauxshadowing}}: During the lead-in to the scene where Michèle and Patrick go down to the basement ostensibly to look at the new water boiler he installed, the film seems to be hinting that he will attempt to kill her down there. Instead, they just have rough sex.
33	* FootsieUnderTheTable: Michèle plays footsie with Patrick at the Christmas party.
34	* GayParee: Very much averted. We only see one EstablishingShot showing the Île de la Cité and Notre Dame, otherwise the film shows only typical urban neighborhoods which could be in any French city, really.
35	* HighlyVisibleNinja: The rapist's disguise
36	* HomageShot: The final shot of the film suggests its counterpart in ''Film/{{Casablanca}}''.
37	* ImAManICantHelpIt: The rapist's message on Michèle's laptop.
38	* LikeParentLikeSpouse: They're not married, but Josie's forceful badgering of Vincent, and nonchalance at having let another man father their child, shows she is not unlike Michèle.
39	** And while at first that may be why Michèle doesn't like her, after the scene where [[spoiler:they scatter Michèle's mother's ashes]] she seems to realize that that's just what Vincent needs.
40	* MasochismTango: [[spoiler:Michèle and Patrick.]]
41	* MyBelovedSmother: Michèle to Vincent, who lets her disappointment towards him be well known. [[spoiler: That is until the end, when involving Vincent in her BatmanGambit to kill Patrick causes him to [[GrewASpine grow a spine]].]]
42	* NaughtyTentacles: The game developed by Michèle's company has tentacles in spades. [[spoiler: A deliberately offensive mod with her face made by one of her employees, Kevin, is more blatant about it.]]
43	* NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization: Deconstructed, actually more like ''problematized'' [[spoiler:due to the rapist turning out to be Patrick, whom Michèle has developed a crush on and attempted to seduce ''before'' she learns he's the rapist]].
44	* OddCouple: [[spoiler:Michèle and Patrick, ''her rapist''.]]
45	* OneWordTitle
46	* OverTheTopChristmasDecorations: The life-size illuminated figures of the Three Wise Men in front of Rebecca and Patrick's house. While this may not seem like a lot by American standards, the film takes place in France with all the characters being French, from whom we would usually expect more tasteful, restrained displays.
47	** [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by Rebecca being such a devout Catholic that she and her family take time off to go to Spain and join the pope on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
48	* ParentWithNewParamour: A source of friction between Michèle and Irène
49	* PoliceAreUseless: Subverted in that Michèle's decision not to report the rape to police isn't because she doubts their competence but because of her experience with them after her father's crime when she was a child.
50	* PopUpTexting: Averted; the character's phones are shown in extreme closeup when texts are important to the plot.
51	* ProductPlacement: A lot for a French film:
52	** Platform/PlayStation4 booths are visible at the game launch party.
53	** Michèle at one point is seen using google.fr to search.
54	** One of the developers conspicuously drinks a Red Bull
55	** A [=McDonald=]'s and Starbucks are seen in the street.
56	** Hélène teaches Bikram yoga
57	** The characters drive Audis, Toyotas and Volvos.
58	* RapeAsBackstory: The very first scene opens with a rape and it sets the tone of the movie.
59	* RedHerring: The movie made some implications that [[spoiler: Kurt, one of the employees of Michèle's company and the one who resents her the most,]] did rape her since he and her rapist wear similar clothing. He was also suspected as the person behind the rape animation that was sent around the company. [[spoiler: It turns out Kurt is not the one who is behind of all this. Kevin, another employee Michèle hired to investigate the animation, is actually the one who made the animation. However, he did not rape her.]]
60	* TheReveal: [[spoiler: Patrick, who lives next door to Michèle, is her rapist.]]
61	* ShootTheShaggyDog: The subplot with Michèle dragging her feet when it comes to acknowledging her mass murderer father [[spoiler:comes to an AntiClimax when he hangs himself after it was announced to him she was visiting.]]
62	* SinsOfOurFathers: Michèle is the daughter of a mass murderer and resents him for ruining her childhood.
63	* SpitefulSpit: Averted. Michèle plans to do this to her father, [[spoiler:but he kills himself before she can see him]].
64	* StockholmSyndrome: [[spoiler: After discovering Patrick is the rapist, instead of reporting him to police, Michèle seeks him out to experience it again.]]
65	* ThereIsOnlyOneBed: Michéle and Anne share a bed, [[HoYay look longingly into each other's eyes, and come close to kissing]].
66	* TruthInTelevision: After the rape, Michèle shows some behavior common to rape victims in real life: emotional numbness, flashbacks to it from similar objects and being in the same space, and imagining what would have happened if she had fought back.
67	** The rapist's later taunts via anonymous texts and his visit to the house [[spoiler:where he leaves semen all over Michèle's bed and a message on her laptop saying he couldn't help himself]] are also similar to things done by real rapists.
68	* [[UnscrupulousHero Unscrupulous Heroine]]: Michèle stages sneak attacks and asks one of her workers to hack into ''everybody else's '''home''' computers'' in an attempt to find the rapist. When she's not doing that, she has affairs with ''two'' of her best friends' husbands as well as her neighbor's, jealously plants a toothpick in a snack her ex-husband's younger girlfriend will eat at a party and lies about many things.

Context Film / Elle