Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Audrey Diwan
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Will Sharpe, Naomi Watts, Jamie Campbell Bower, Chacha Huang, Anthony Wong
You might argue the Emmanuelle franchise is to France as James Bond is to Britain, a
global juggernaut that raked in the cash during the sexually liberated
1970s before the conservatism of the '80s consigned it to late night
cable TV. As difficult to imagine as it is now, 1974's Emmanuelle was the quintessential date movie of its era, with some sources
estimating it sold over 300 million (!!!) tickets at the global box
office. With its mix of boobs, high fashion and scenic locales, the
early entries in the franchise appealed to women as much as men, so it
feels entirely natural that a woman, Audrey Diwan, should be
responsible for attempting to resuscitate the series in this era of
sexless cinema.
Diwan made her name with her acclaimed abortion drama Happening, and she now uses the Emmanuelle sandbox for another study of female
sexual agency. In the original film, and the novel by "Emmanuelle Arsan"
(a pseudonym for either writer Marayat Rollet-Andriane or her
husband Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane, depending on whom you
believe), the title character was a teenage model married to an older
man who experiences a sexual awakening (and controversially, a sexual
assault) when she joins her hubby on a business trip to Bangkok. Diwan
and co-writer Rebecca Zlotowski have ditched this
setup, with their Emmanuelle (played by Noémie Merlant) a
sexually voracious unmarried thirtysomething hotel inspector who has
more in common with the liberated career woman "Emanuelle" (note the
single M) played by Laura Gemser in the infamous "Black Emanuelle"
series of Italian knockoffs than with the sexually naive but curious
nymph made famous by Sylvia Kristel.
As with the James Bond films, a large part of the appeal of the
Emmanuelle series for '70s audiences was the travelogue element,
exposing viewers to the sort of exotic locales they could only dream of
visiting. We now live in a time when working class families spend their
Christmas hols in Dubai, and so Diwan has dropped this aspect, moving
the drama from Bangkok to Hong Kong, and keeping most of the film
contained within the walls of a luxury hotel. Emmanuelle is sent here by
the hotel's owners to find enough faults that they can justify firing
the establishment's prissy manager (Naomi Watts, whose acting
style here resembles a tetchy British news anchor interviewing a
representative of some hostile foreign state). In between timing
waiters, tasting food and joining guests for threesomes, Emmanuelle
becomes obsessed with Kai (Will Sharpe, as bad here as he's great
in A Real Pain), a mysterious engineer whose indifference only makes her all the
hornier.
Save for an opening visit to the mile high club and a scene where
Emmanuelle and a local escort (Chacha Huang) watch each other
masturbate, Diwan's film has practically nothing in common with Just
Jaeckin's 1974 film. For a start there's not a lot of sex, with the few
romps we do get barely glimpsed. This Emmanuelle seems to get more
pleasure from herself than from others, with Diwan's camera preferring
to linger over Merlant's impressive figure as she pleasures herself than
take in her experiences with other partners. Merlant's Emmanuelle is a
puzzle, an almost parodic study in gallic aloofness except when Kai
appears, at which point she behaves like a 1960s teenybopper who just
discovered she's staying in the same hotel as The Beatles. Emmanuelle's
pursuit of Kai is so extreme (at one point she uses her pass to enter
his room and drink his bathwater) that it would see her arrested were
she a man or an unattractive woman. The miscast Sharpe tries to play it
cool in her presence but the imposing Merlant makes him look like a
scared little boy in their shared scenes. You get the sense Sharpe and
Merlant are using their roles to audition for the next Bond movie -
Sharpe flops but Merlant should have Barbara Broccoli sitting up and
paying attention.
With most of the movie confined to the hotel, and Diwan seemingly as
interested in the inner workings of the establishment as her leading
lady's libido, Emmanuelle almost ventures into the territory of Ballard's High Rise and Cronenberg's Shivers, as though the building itself is exerting a sexual influence on its
guests. With the staff speaking about the enigmatic Kai as though he may
be a ghost, Diwan brushes up against Last Year in Marienbad. Modern viewers may note elements of Mike White's acclaimed resort-set
TV drama The White Lotus, minus the wit and colourful characters. Diwan's main influence
appears to be Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express, with Emmanuelle venturing out to that film's setting, Chungking
Mansions, in the final act when she eventually leaves the hotel.
Emmanuelle proves an example of how Asian cinema can get away with certain
things that look and sound ridiculous when transferred to westerners.
The dialogue between Emmanuelle and Kai is laughably bad (one
conversation is right up there with the dog food scene in Showgirls), but you could imagine yourself accepting it were it performed by
Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. Emmanuelle's invasion of Kai's room is
clearly a nod to Faye Wong breaking into Leung's apartment in Chungking Express, but what plays as adorable for Wong only comes off as demented when
enacted by a statuesque French woman.
What's most surprising about this attempted revival of vintage
titillation is how its protagonist is almost exclusively heterosexual.
Where Kristel's Emmanuelle was the very definition of pansexual,
Merlant's character comes off as almost reactionary in her single-minded
pursuit of Kai. The original film offered the thesis that to experience
great sex you need to focus on lust rather than love, whereas this more
prudish version seems to suggest the opposite, with Kai appearing to
represent a desired stability on Emmanuelle's part. It all leads to a
satisfying climax for its heroine, but the audience may feel the need to
finish themselves off.
Emmanuelle is in UK/ROI
cinemas from January 17th.
