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Elles

  • 2011
  • NC-17
  • 1h 39m
IMDb RATING
5.6/10
7.9K
YOUR RATING
Juliette Binoche in Elles (2011)
On her latest assignment, a journalist for Elle immerses herself in a prostitution ring run by university students.
Play trailer1:36
1 Video
30 Photos
Psychological DramaDrama

On her latest assignment, a journalist for Elle immerses herself in a prostitution ring run by university students.On her latest assignment, a journalist for Elle immerses herself in a prostitution ring run by university students.On her latest assignment, a journalist for Elle immerses herself in a prostitution ring run by university students.

  • Director
    • Malgorzata Szumowska
  • Writers
    • Tine Byrckel
    • Malgorzata Szumowska
  • Stars
    • Juliette Binoche
    • Anaïs Demoustier
    • Joanna Kulig
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.6/10
    7.9K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Malgorzata Szumowska
    • Writers
      • Tine Byrckel
      • Malgorzata Szumowska
    • Stars
      • Juliette Binoche
      • Anaïs Demoustier
      • Joanna Kulig
    • 27User reviews
    • 97Critic reviews
    • 50Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win total

    Videos1

    International Version
    Trailer 1:36
    International Version

    Photos30

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    + 25
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    Top cast25

    Edit
    Juliette Binoche
    Juliette Binoche
    • Anne
    Anaïs Demoustier
    Anaïs Demoustier
    • Charlotte
    Joanna Kulig
    Joanna Kulig
    • Alicja
    Louis-Do de Lencquesaing
    Louis-Do de Lencquesaing
    • Patrick
    Krystyna Janda
    Krystyna Janda
    • La mère d'Alicja
    Andrzej Chyra
    Andrzej Chyra
    • Le client sadique
    Ali Marhyar
    • Saïd
    Jean-Marie Binoche
    • Le père d'Anne
    François Civil
    François Civil
    • Florent
    Pablo Beugnet
    • Stéphane
    Valérie Dréville
    Valérie Dréville
    • La mère de Charlotte
    Jean-Louis Coulloc'h
    Jean-Louis Coulloc'h
    • Le père de Charlotte
    Arthur Moncla
    • Thomas
    Scali Delpeyrat
    Scali Delpeyrat
    • Charles
    Laurence Ragon
    • Colette
    Alain Libolt
    • Le mari de Colette
    Swann Arlaud
    Swann Arlaud
    • Le jeune client
    Nicolas Layani
    • Le client guitare
    • Director
      • Malgorzata Szumowska
    • Writers
      • Tine Byrckel
      • Malgorzata Szumowska
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews27

    5.67.8K
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    Featured reviews

    7rubenm

    Showcase for Binoche's acting talent

    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.
    7stensson

    Erotic lifestyles

    According to some reports, great many female students in France financed their studies from prostitution. This film starts from this report. Juliette Binoche plays the journalist who interviews two of these girls. Many times.

    She tries to analyze it all from a cold professional view, but finds that she is the one who changes and maybe also gets analyzed. The girls tell her they are abused sometimes, but Binoche is the one who takes the biggest injuries.

    Interesting film about "Western morals" declining more and more in all ways, since we're not interesting in sharing profits like we used to. But the film is a little cold and and analyzing, just like a professional journalist should be.
    6paul2001sw-1

    Enjoyable but weak

    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.
    8jpm-387-613125

    Intimate and close but superb.

    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.
    lazarillo

    OK French "social problem" movie, but perhaps a little exploitative and hypocritical

    This movie, like another recent French movie "Student Services", exposes the apparent current social problem of impoverished Parisian female university students resorting to prostitution. In America movies like this are generally preachy and alarmist and usually relegated to the Lifetime network where they're viewed mostly by bored housewives. I'm not exactly sure WHO these French movies are aimed at though, and they seem a little hypocritical. If you REALLY want to de-glamorize co-ed prostitution should you show quite so many scenes of impossibly attractive French actresses like Deborah Francois (in "Student Services") or Anais Demoustier (in this) having hot, naked, kinky sex? Women might appreciate the social message here, but most men will find it a little hard to concentrate on the message what with all the blood flowing from their brains to their boners. Even the middle-age female protagonist of this movie, a journalist played by Juliette Binoche, is so turned on by audiotapes of the Demnoustrier character's sex sessions that at one point she has to go in the bathroom and pleasure herself. She becomes so obsessed with her "expose" that she neglects her husband and children. She's definitely a strange, and not particularly likable, character.

    The movie is also surprisingly kinky. Demoustier's prostitute character has wine bottle inserted in her butt by a sadistic client. Another Polish prostitute has her large breasts urinated on. These scenes aren't graphic, of course, but the fact that they're included at all--combined with a rather muddled moral message--definitely tends to move this toward lurid exploitation.

    Binoche is not very good in this, but it might be the character she's saddled with. Demoustier is both sexy and adorable, but doesn't have much of a role, and her character pretty much disappears after the assault with the wine bottle. I didn't dislike this movie, but I prefer the similar "Student Services". It too seems a little at odds with itself message-wise, but it gives the major role to its sympathetic prostitute character. And it's not QUITE so exploitative and hypocritical.

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    Related interests

    Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
    Psychological Drama
    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Director Malgorzata Szumowska revealed Joanna Kulig, who in the film plays a prostitute, was so afraid of the scene where she is naked with a client who is peeing over her. "It was amazing that for three months she was afraid of that scene. But what was challenging was that when she starts to do it, she did it very fast. In a few hours without any hysteria, no questions." During that scene Kulig wanted to hear classical music and asked that not all the crew were on the set. "For me it was very difficult to keep concentrated!" - the actress said. "The scene was funny. On the sixth time [the juice machine] was broke so we had to stop. And everybody started to laugh. I had to be very concentrated. To have a serious face thinking about the subject. And I started to play and for two minutes, 'Sorry! We have to stop. This machine doesn't work with the juice!' And everybody...."
    • Quotes

      Anne: All women are whores, is that it?

    • Crazy credits
      Closing credits begin during a breakfast scene with Anne's family.
    • Connections
      Features We Fuck Alone (2006)
    • Soundtracks
      Symphony No. 7 Op. 92 II. Allegretto
      Written by Ludwig van Beethoven

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    FAQ17

    • How long is Elles?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 1, 2012 (France)
    • Countries of origin
      • France
      • Poland
      • Germany
    • Official sites
      • Haut et Court (France)
      • Juliette Binoche: The Art of Being - Official Fansite
    • Languages
      • French
      • English
      • Polish
      • Arabic
    • Also known as
      • Gái Gọi Nữ Sinh
    • Filming locations
      • Paris, France
    • Production companies
      • Slot Machine
      • Zentropa International Poland
      • Zentropa International Köln
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • €4,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $157,508
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $24,286
      • Apr 29, 2012
    • Gross worldwide
      • $3,822,241
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 39m(99 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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