Emmanuelle

Too scary for Emmanuelle. Rating is overrated, I give it a 2*. 36-year-old actress. Kristel was 21-22 at the time of the first movie. I won't talk about attractiveness, it's a matter of taste, but at least you could have picked someone closer in type for the plot. "It used to be better"? I guess so.

The casting is as lame as possible. All attempts to shoot "by the book" after that are useless about completely. Absolutely. The image of Emmanuelle is not formed in any way. Of course, a new movie production of a beautiful novel has long been relevant. But something like this is better not to be filmed at all. Better nothing than this bad.

Why did this production come into being?

I read the books when they were written and, I saw the movies in Ireland, when censorship was rampent.

Whomever came up with the idea of bringing the stories into the 21st century, should never be involved in cinematopraghy, ever again.

They denigrated the books, the movies, and the memory of Sylvia Krystel. I am so very surprised that Namoi Watts would lend herself to this travesty.

The books were erotic for the '70's, and were ripe for European art movies, which were not always available to us Irish "children".

I read all the books, saw all the movies, and this is a disgrace. Even the Black Emmanual movies that were later produced, are better than this piece of crap.

Avoid, Avoid, Avoid.

The good: beautiful locations, often great cinematography and the film mostly has a great atmosphere (reminded me a bit of Lost in Translation). For its style alone, I'd give it a 7/10

The rest however is pretty bad. No character depth or development, pointless and often involuntarily funny dialogue, which makes the scenes that are supposed to be erotic quite dull And also: hardly any story

If you're looking for a stylishly made movie with no substance that gives you a good laugh from time to time because of its ridiculous dialogue and logic, then you'll at least be entertained.

But from a holistic point of view, I can't give it more than 4/10.

Emmanuelle (1974) is legendary. Not in any way because the Just Jaeckin classic is an amazing movie, but because it became widely known for two main things:

1) The boundary pushing eroticism of an adventurous woman seeking sexual emancipation/discovery.

2) Sylvia Kristel, a then 22 year-old, who became an icon of perfect beauty.

Although I have never been a fan of remakes, Emmanualle lends itself well to a reimaging simply because sexual attitudes change over time and the original is now over 50 years old.

Emmanuelle (2024) is actually better than I was expecting. The cinematography is especially beautiful, and the tone rather stylish. Noémie Merlant is elegant, somewhat similar looking to a young Phoebe Waller-Bridge, yet her breasts are just as equally voluptuous as that of Kristel's.

Does the movie push the boundaries of today as the '74 classic once did? No, and although it could have well done this, Emmanuelle conciously refrains from drifting into being a piece of generic sleaze by limiting the nudity/sex to where it feels appropriate. Emmanuelle's journey to sexual enlightenment could have had a clearer narrative however.

The addition of Naomi Watts was a rather delightful piece of casting, but regretfully she does not partake in any sexy shenanigans.

Overall, Emmanuelle '24 is a nice enough update. Yet it won't be a significant title 50 years from now or topple the original's reputation.

Whoever decided to let Audrey Diwan direct and destroy this nostaligic franchise needs to rather donate the production money to animal welfare.

This movie has nothing in common with the other movies in the franchise and labors on and on with infinite reels of redundant dialogue.

I am happy the franchise has been rebooted but please can they hand the movie back into the hands of a man to make and Audrey Diwan is better suited to directing " Grass is green let's watch it grow" Perhaps the moviemakers should spend some time watching the original movies to better understand what made this franchise actually premiere in movie theatres at one point.

Noemie Merlant was not badly cast, she did her best to bring sexuality into the movie but there was nothing to work with.

No idea what Naomi Watts was doing in this movie.