Synopsis
A journalist tries to balance the duties of marriage and motherhood while researching a piece on college women who work as prostitutes to pay their tuition.
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Cast
- Juliette BinocheAnne
- Anaïs DemoustierCharlotte
- Joanna KuligAlicja
- Louis-Do de LencquesaingPatrick
- Krystyna JandaMutter
- Andrzej ChyraSadist client
- Ali MarhyarSaïd
- François CivilFlorent
- Jean-Marie BinocheLe père d'Anne
- Pablo BeugnetStéphane
Recommendations
- 67
The A.V. Club
Elles is racy and often sexy, but underneath that simmers an old-school feminist anger. - 60
Empire
Another bravura performance from Juliette Binoche glosses over the flaws in a soft-focused glimpse at the seamier side of student life. - 60
Total Film
Binoche is, as always, superb, but Malgorzata Szumowska's film won't tell you much about the oldest profession that you didn't already know – and Binoche's marital clashes feel like a standard feminist tract circa 1975. - 60
Time Out
Titillation and tentative stabs at gender studies do not a cogent cri de coeur make. It's simply a provocation that's all hopped up with nowhere to go. - 60
Los Angeles Times
It's tempting to call Elles some kind of thinking-person's sex movie, but it's more about thinking and about sex (and thinking about sex) and is far more likely to encourage awkward, emphatic conversation than post-show friskiness. - 50
Slant Magazine
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. - 50
New York Post
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 and Alicja. The result is a superficial and voyeuristic film. - 40
The Guardian
Binoche rises above the lubricious material by giving a thoroughly detailed and committed performance as the journalist.
