Elle(2016)

Plot Summary

• A middle-aged French woman, Michèle Leblanc, is raped in her home by an assailant in a ski mask. After the masked man flees, she then promptly cleans up the mess and resumes her life.Michèle is the assertive head of a successful video game company based in Paris, France, where her male employees are alternately resentful of or infatuated with her. She feels detached from her son Vincent, who submits to the pregnant Josie, his domineering, ungrateful and likely unfaithful girlfriend. Michèle has a contentious relationship with her selfish and promiscuous mother, whom she resents for her narcissism and involvements with younger men. Meanwhile, she carries on an affair with Robert, the husband of her best friend and business partner Anna, and develops a risque flirtation with her neighbor Patrick, a banker who is married to a devoutly Catholic woman named Rebecca.Furthermore, it is revealed that Michèle is the daughter of a mass murderer whose parole hearing is soon approaching after spending nearly 20 years in prison. Haunted by a violent event from her childhood and the subsequent media frenzy, Michèle is wary of law enforcement and does not report the rape to police, despite the pleas of her friends.Following the rape, Michèle grows increasingly suspicious of the men in her life. She at first suspects Kurt, a particularly resentful employee, when a CGI animation of a monster raping her is emailed to everyone at the company. She pepper-sprays a man lurking outside her house, only to find out it is Richard, her ex-husband, who was checking on her safety. She later discovers that another employee who has been infatuated with her created the animation, but did not rape her.Michèle is attacked in her home by the same masked assailant one night, and after stabbing his hand and unmasking him, learns that he is Patrick. Though Patrick has been harassing her and she now knows that he is able to enter her home despite having her locks changed after the previous incident, she still does not call the police, and furthermore takes no measures to increase her home security.Michèle decides to visit her father after his parole application is rejected, only to find that he has hanged himself hours before she arrived, which Michèle suspects is because he could not bear to face her again. On the way home from the prison, she gets into a car crash in a secluded area. Rather than calling an ambulance, she first calls her friends, who don't answer, and then decides to call Patrick. After Patrick rescues her from the car and bandages her, Michèle courts a brazenly dangerous sexual relationship with him. She engages in a vivid rape scenario while attempting to mitigate his inability to perform with a consenting woman. The two of them walk a delicate line in which Patrick has to feel like he is raping Michèle even though she consents to the roleplay.Michèle grows increasingly disillusioned with the various facets of her life leading up to the celebration party for the premiere of her company's new video game. She confesses to Anna that she was having an affair with Robert. As Patrick drives her home from the party, Michèle professes that she is no longer in denial about their unhealthy relationship, and claims she intends to call the police. She takes her time walking in front of his parked car after getting out, and then before entering her home makes a point to leave the gate unlocked. Patrick enters the house and attacks her in an ambiguous encounter that blurs the line between rape and consent... but Vincent, who was already in the house, sneaks up behind Patrick as he is on top of Michèle, and bashes him in the back of the skull. Michèle appears to remain largely composed during and after the rape while giving her statement to the police, but before dying, Patrick seems confused.In the final scene, Michèle speaks briefly with Rebecca as she is moving out of the neighborhood. Rebecca is placid and expresses gratitude to Michèle for being able to temporarily "satisfy Patrick's needs".... implying that she was aware on some level that the two were sexually involved and that Patrick had inclinations she, as his wife, couldn't satisfy. Vincent is shown to be a bit more assertive in his relationship and career, while Michèle reconciles with both Josie and Anna, the latter of whom offers to move in with her now that they have both severed their relationships with Robert.

Storyline

• Michèle seems indestructible. Head of a successful video game company, she brings the same ruthless attitude to her love life as to business. Being attacked in her home by an unknown assailant changes Michèle's life forever. When she resolutely tracks the man down, they are both drawn into a curious and thrilling game-a game that may, at any moment, spiral out of control. — SBS Productions The wealthy entrepreneur Michèle Leblanc is the owner of a video-game company that she runs with her best friend Anna. She is divorced from Richard Leblanc and has a love affair with Anna's husband Robert. Her son Vincent lives with his girlfriend Josie that is pregnant. Her mother Irène Leblanc tries to convince Michèle to visit her father that is in prison for a life sentence after killing twenty-seven neighbors in an outbreak. One day, Michèle is raped by a stranger wearing a ski mask. She buys pepper spray and an ax for self-protection while she seeks out the attacker. She also befriends her next door neighbors Patrick and Rebecca and invites them to a Christmas party at her home. When the stranger breaks in her house again, Michèle subdues him and has a surprise. Who might be the rapist? — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil In the safety of her home, a stranger wearing a ski mask brutally assaults Michèle Leblanc, the divorced and successful CEO of a video-game development company. Then, alive, but seemingly insensitive to her traumatic experience, Michèle throws her clothes in the trash, washes the perpetrator's foul stench off her, and for her own indecipherable reasons, she decides to avoid reporting the incident to the police. But, little by little, as a repulsed but resilient Michèle tries to carry on with her life, disturbing text messages from her unknown but ever-present violator will inevitably lead her to believe that the stalker could be anyone from the men she knows. Could it be someone who is still holding a grudge? — Nick Riganas When Michèle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving family, all the while becoming engaged in a game of cat and mouse with her stalker.