This film's a pile of nonsense really. It sets up a fascinating little intrigue, but can't pay off on it.
The intrigue in question is all around Adjani's character, Elle, a new girl in a French village, flouncing around making a spectacle of herself in lurid, figure-hugging, sometimes see-through, outfits and subject to wild mood swings. Unlike a few other reviewers here, I love this part. It's funny, the sex bomb stuff like a cartoon absurdist satire of the trope, and Elle's lurching emotional shifts nicely evoking worst dates ever. In the latter respect, it's rather similar to After Hours, a favourite film of mine, made around the same time.
What does it all mean? Nothing, seriously, don't worry about it. No, alright, what it's about is the sex bomb veneer and the human vulnerability behind it. More generally, maybe it's the way we can use our strengths, eg being very sexy, against ourselves, to hide from our own weaknesses and traumas.
The veneer and its fissures are brilliantly depicted. The problem is showing what's behind that. In attempting to make good on its seemingly abundant promise, the film builds a ricketty tower of explanation that doesn't, when you think about it, really explain any of what was interesting about the start. In doing so, it becomes convoluted, implausible, overlong and incredibly boring.
The intrigue in question is all around Adjani's character, Elle, a new girl in a French village, flouncing around making a spectacle of herself in lurid, figure-hugging, sometimes see-through, outfits and subject to wild mood swings. Unlike a few other reviewers here, I love this part. It's funny, the sex bomb stuff like a cartoon absurdist satire of the trope, and Elle's lurching emotional shifts nicely evoking worst dates ever. In the latter respect, it's rather similar to After Hours, a favourite film of mine, made around the same time.
What does it all mean? Nothing, seriously, don't worry about it. No, alright, what it's about is the sex bomb veneer and the human vulnerability behind it. More generally, maybe it's the way we can use our strengths, eg being very sexy, against ourselves, to hide from our own weaknesses and traumas.
The veneer and its fissures are brilliantly depicted. The problem is showing what's behind that. In attempting to make good on its seemingly abundant promise, the film builds a ricketty tower of explanation that doesn't, when you think about it, really explain any of what was interesting about the start. In doing so, it becomes convoluted, implausible, overlong and incredibly boring.