“Elle” is an elegant, nasty piece of work, the kind of twisty, handsomely produced, nominally erotic thriller that plays almost as a parody of French films that mistake pathological disengagement for ...

“Elle,” an almost debilitating act of cinematic provocation starring Isabelle Huppert, opens during a rape. We hear it first while the screen is black, then see the last 15 seconds in a disorienting ...