Those of you who have read my Soft Porn Sundays will know by now that I’m a big fan of Emmanuelle. I’ve put a lot of work into it, in any case. I’ve rhapsodised about Emmanuelle in Space and bemoaned the Troll 2 of softcore that is Emmanuelle in Rio. I’ve done a deep dive into Emmanuelle Through Time and I’ve even sometimes featured the unofficial stuff.
Having seen every Emmanuelle film by now, one would assume the franchise was exhausted, on account of the fact that it’s now featured love goddesses, nymphs, vampires, werewolves, aliens from outer space, ghosts, fairytale characters (in a musical!) and multiversal variants. And yet they saw fit to throw another film into the mix, this time with a full cinematic release and seemingly huge budget.
You can get away with this because the last film in the canon established the fact that Haffron opened a rift to the multiverse and revealed the fact that there are an infinite number of alternate Emmanuelles in their own universes, which explains why her face keeps changing.
This one is seemingly the first set in the most boring universe of all.
Emmanuelle (2024)
Director: Audrey Diwan
Starring: Noémie Merlant, Will Sharpe, Jamie Campbell Bower, Naomi watts, et al.
This is also the first Emmanuelle title since the very first not to be produced by Alain Siritzky, who oversaw every one from Emmanuelle 2 up until his death in 2014. It’s dedicated to his memory, but produced by completely different companies. Gone are the tongue-in-cheek pop culture references and the sci-fi elements; they have also dispensed with the stylised “E” that has appeared in every version so far, and – tragically – the wicker chair! They really should have kept that in, at least!
Reviews of this have been mixed, to say the least. Some people love it; some hate it. I was completely bemused by this… and here’s why.
It makes no sense
The plot uproots Emmanuelle’s globe-trotting adventures and places her in Hong Kong for the entirety of the one hour and forty-seven minutes’ runtime. No longer is she a reporter or a photojournalist or a diplomat’s wife; here she works for a hotel chain, seemingly here to review the hotel itself but truthfully to dig up some dirt on hotel owner Margot Parson (Naomi Watts). Her boss (voiced with malevolence by an unknown actor) wants to fire Margot for reason or reasons unknown…
…oh, and there’s some stuff about yoghurt. I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention.
And that’s it. That’s the plot. There are multiple subplots involving escorts, actors, tapping rhythms and illegal mahjong, but they all come and go with such little context that they may as well be salad dressing for all the relevance they have. The main story doesn’t even have a climax, or a resolution… suggesting, that the writers changed their mind halfway through and put something else in there!
My OH would like to add that there is very little emotional truth in it, either. The film continues apace with people saying and doing things but there’s no rhyme or reason behind them. It’s like watching soulless automatons acting out a script written by AI.
The cast is odd AF
Let’s get this one out of the way first. Noémie Merlant is an incredibly beautiful woman. Is she a good actress? Yes. Does she have a nice voice? Yes. Does she have an innate sensuality for such an iconic role? Sure, why not. Is she Emmanuelle? No. There’s something about the character that she does not have. It’s difficult to pinpoint, but she doesn’t really have the X-factor that Sylvia Kristel, Krista Allen, Holly Sampson and Allie Haze all had.
The rest of the cast are fine. Will Sharpe is originally intriguing as the mysterious Kei, although more annoying later on as he suddenly becomes important; Bower is good as advertising executive Sir John, but he vanishes with no real explanation. Perhaps the best character, Zelda (Chacha Huang), is written out before the ending seemingly just to give Emmanuelle some detective work to do.
The problem is that practically none of them serve any purpose. There isn’t much of a story to advance and (apart from Kei) none of them are relevant to it. You may as well have a film just featuring Emmanuelle and Kei and you could still get the same film.
The cinematographer should be fired
I have no explanation for this.
I don’t know why there are so many slow zooms to end in close-up of Merlant’s head. I’m not sure why some bits are so light whereas some are so dark and there’s absolutely nothing in between. I’m clueless as to the bits where Emmanuelle’s talking to another character and you can’t see who she’s talking to.
I’m also not sure where the wicker chair has gone.
And then there’s the music. Zounds, the music. Emmanuelle films have often featured some of the best and most iconic scores softcore has ever seen. The score here is moody, dour and sparse; there’s very little to it. It doesn’t even fit the sex scenes, which is usually a big part of them. Speaking of which…
It isn’t sexy, genuinely
And it really isn’t. Yes, there is sex in this film. but for something with so much sex – and, come to think of it, gratuitous nudity – it certainly isn’t particularly arousing. Maybe it isn’t meant to be. Handled differently, or given different camera and atmosphere work, these could be sizzling hot sex scenes. But these aren’t. These are attractive enough people going through the motions, turning titillation into tedium.
And that’s really frustrating. This could have saved the film. There’s a scene partway through where a completely naked Emmanuelle masturbates to orgasm in her hotel room. There’s a lesbian encounter between her and Zelda in a shed hidden in the grounds. There’s even a sex scene with a stranger in an aeroplane bathroom…
…none of which are particularly arousing! I saw this in a cinema with an audience, so I’m not supposed to be fapping to this or anything, but why are they devoid of any emotion?
And the sad part is…
The final, most crushing thing I can say about Emmanuelle is that it has so many elements of a good film in it somewhere. It’s well-intentioned, the cast is great and trying hard, it certainly looks pretty, and some aspects are genuinely compelling. Notably a “storm” scene, which happens about midway through, is handled incredibly well, is appropriately atmospheric, and even serves to advance what little there is of a plot.
There isn’t genuinely a lot of sex, but what there is isn’t bad; it’s a little lacklustre, but they are trying. In fact, the final sex scene (also the last scene of the movie) is explicit, different, long and even managed to turn me on a little. But that was such a rarity.
Emmanuelle manages to disappoint on so many levels because it is empty. There’s nothing here: it is a hollow shell of a film which shows how little thought went into it. It is completely emotionless, limp, devoid of a comprehensible story and completely wasteful of a talented cast. It does nothing to entertain or arouse, has practically no link to the character as previously established in either movie or book, and feels nothing other than soporific at points, derisory or cringe-inducing at others.
Alain Siritzky would be insulted, I’m sure… but I most certainly am too.