Film: Emmanuelle
Cast: Noémie Merlant, Naomi Watts, Will Sharpe, Jamie Campbell Bower, Chacha Huang, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Carole Franck, Isabella Wei
Director: Audrey Diwan
Rating: 1.5/5
Runtime: 117

The original Emmanuelle (1974) was a crossover hit adapted from a book ‘The tome by Emmanuelle Arsan’ directed by Just Jaeckin starring Sylvia Kristel, and contributed in some measure to “sexual revolution” of that time.The current ‘Emmanuelle’ is just a revisionist erotic drama that is campy, pretentious, slow and meaningless.

Director Audrey Diwan‘s follow-up to acclaimed, Venice Golden Lion-winning ‘Happening’ is unlikely to have any kind of cultural impact - all it does is get the protagonist to go from one lover to another in a failed attempt to put female agency in the driver’s seat. All this with a flat tone and a fatal absence of humor.