Emmanuelle movie review: Noémie Merlant is wasted in stylish yet empty drama on female sexuality | Hollywood

The premise

The film rests on Noémie Merlant, who stars as a luxury hotel inspector gathering information about the people and the place with quiet curiosity. She is keen to discover what happens behind the executive decisions made by the immaculately-suited manager Margot (Naomi Watts). There is an elusive visitor at the Rosefield Palace named Kei (Will Sharpe), who arrives, speaks illogical lines like he is “a Frequent International Traveler, a FIT,” and leaves.

For a film that wants to explore female sexuality and agency, Emmanuelle plays it too safe and pristine to warrant any interest in the journey of its lead heroine. Emmanuelle is presented without any backstory, her body framed from closeups, her face lit with a sort of puzzled expression. What is she thinking? What does she want? She does not know it herself, and neither does the viewer.

Merlant looks beautiful in the pixie cut and is styled glamorously, but the actor looks out of place and blanketed. Then there is Naomi Watts, who seems surprised to even exercise that British accent in a totally thankless role. Will Sharpe’s nod is unfit to be a FIT here, and the actor is wasted in a severely underwritten character.

Poor screenplay and dialogue

There’s a puzzling lack of depth in Diwan and co-screenwriter Rebecca Zlotowski’s screenplay, with almost no focus on building this titular character from her encounters and interactions. More interest seems to lie in the production design, with the luxurious hotel lobbies and suites- framed as if Diwan was also making a case for a hotel advertisement. The dialogues are strictly one-note and sometimes illogical at places, especially when they are rendered with such stubbornness amid the elite hotel setting.

Emmanuelle is a strange case of a film which is not aware of what it wants to be. Forget the need for female gaze, there is no gaze at all. Emmanuelle is self-aware of a certain subtext. Still, Diwan’s revisionist approach stops at giving the female protagonist a sense of autonomy without knowing what that truly means for her. It is just too many exquisite hotel shots, luxury food arrangement, and aimless talk to actually mean anything. She barely has an orgasm, and the sex scenes feel like they are shot in some kind of emotional vacuum- devoid of any psychological and emotional burden.

There is too much attention to rhythm, style and proportion in a film that warranted more of a free fall, a stirring anticipation for mess. Emmanuelle is aimless, dramatically inert and a little too safe to invest in.

Emmanuelle is available to stream on Lionsgate Play.