Elles

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.

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"

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.

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.

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.