Film: Emmanuelle
Cast: Noémie Merlant, Naomi Watts, Will Sharpe, Jamie Campbell Bower, Chacha Huang, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Carole Franck, Isabella Wei
Director: Audrey Diwan
Rating: 1.5/5
Runtime: 117
The original Emmanuelle (1974) was a crossover hit adapted from a book ‘The tome by Emmanuelle Arsan’ directed by Just Jaeckin starring Sylvia Kristel, and contributed in some measure to “sexual revolution” of that time.The current ‘Emmanuelle’ is just a revisionist erotic drama that is campy, pretentious, slow and meaningless.
Director Audrey Diwan‘s follow-up to acclaimed, Venice Golden Lion-winning ‘Happening’ is unlikely to have any kind of cultural impact – all it does is get the protagonist to go from one lover to another in a failed attempt to put female agency in the driver’s seat. All this with a flat tone and a fatal absence of humor.
Diwan and co-screenwriter Rebecca Zlotowski’s screenplay uses the original for inspiration. Kristel’s Emmanuelle was a model whose life revolved around her Bangkok-based diplomat husband and his desires, the new revisionist so-called feminist version of Emmanuelle (Noémie Merlant) is a quality control inspector for a large luxury hotel chain, a career woman of sorts. Ah, but you wouldn’t think so after the dalliances she gets up to.There’s very little occupation involved here.
The plot involves Emmanuelle having a threesome with another couple, following a dark stranger(Kei Shinohara) and fooling around with local escort Zelda (Chacha Huang). As far as her job is concerned, Emmanuelle has to find an excuse for the corporation to fire expensive hotel manager Margot (Naomi Watts), even though she performs her duties impeccably, Then there’s a security chief (Anthony Wong) who scrutinizes everyone’s tiniest move through CCTV.
The film’s main objective is for Emmanuelle to take control sexually. So there’s no real story here. And her trip to Hong Kong, ostensibly, to visit a fine establishment, Rosefield Palace, that has lost its international ranking leading management to suspect something must be wrong with the hotel manager Margot Parson, is just window dressing.
“Emmanuelle” has nothing much to reveal about concepts of sex and womanhood and it’s erotica, aimed at the voyeur, is far too tame to attract interest. Pretty, sensual camerawork and a pulsing soundtrack, by Evgueni and Sacha Galperine, attempts to cast a spell, but its in vain. There’s nothing here that will make you think or entertain.
