Elle

Wednesday, 12.50am, Film4

When arch provocateur Paul Verhoeven teamed up with the risk-taking Isabelle Huppert for this 2016 French drama, the shock value was guaranteed to be high. Huppert stars as Michèle, the co-owner of a company that creates violent video games, who is raped in her home by a masked intruder. With a mistrust of the police born of her horrific family history, she doesn’t report the attack; indeed, she is intrigued, if not turned on, by her feelings about it. In the magnetic Huppert’s hands, Michèle’s fear, anger and desire are conflated in a dark thriller that challenges women-in-peril tropes.