Emmanuelle

How the director who made Happening (2021), a great and tense French movie with strong directing and writing, comes next with a pretentious and tedious experience with Emmanuelle is baffling to me.

Emmanuelle is based on the French erotic series that has a famous reception from the past due to its erotic nature and style. Erotic films are challenging especially trying to combine story, character and sexual themes together without feeling tedious. It has worked but this movie, simply doesn't.

Despite some great camerawork and production designs throughout, unfortunately, it's pointless narrative and characters with barely depth or development makes it a tedious and unwilling experience. Many of the erotic moments and direction felt aimless and messy, which makes more of a bore rather then investment.

The performances from Noémie Merlant and Naomi Watts are trying. I love both of these actresses but they are stuck with a script that fails to give them really anything. I have to believe Watts must have a really bad agent because her talents have been wasted with bad movies these past years. Cause it's a shame since she deserves so much better.

With laughable dialogue and poor structure, it makes a miserable experience.

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.

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.

Aesthetically gorgeous. Apart from that, the script is almost laughable, and dialogs even more. No action, no word is believable, hence disconnected from the audience. I'm not quite sure what has been done to the sound, was every line redone post-production? It ends up being very flat and takes away the spice you would expect from such a great actress as Noemie Merlant. On this note, the entire cast is impressive for giving their very best to an empty shell.

A dozen people left the room during the movie, first one after 10 minutes. I myself fought to stay, out of respect for the cast and crew (Naomi Watts is such a good actress) and for Cinema itself. I hardly managed. The end brings nothing. I left running, quite concerned that a 2024 version of a famously erotic name had been stamped on a movie that reflects in no way the evolution of feminism, and women's pleasure, since 1974.

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.