Emmanuelle: Softcore porn reboot somehow makes watching sex boring
Emmanuelle (2024) | ★★☆☆☆
Emmanuelle, the 1974 film that helped drag softcore erotica into the cultural mainstream, remains among the most successful French movies of all time. Watched by some 300 million horny men and women, it was an X-rated affair, briefly banned in its home nation, perhaps best-known for an infamous scene in which a woman puffed on a cigarette through her vagina. Prudish Brits were having none of this European smut and edited it within an inch of its life before finally allowing its release.
It became a cult classic, spoken of in hushed tones, watched in seedy cinemas by sexually adventurous couples and exchanging hands on unmarked video tapes.
My own introduction to the franchise came much later, some time in the mid-1990s when, as a teenage boy, I stumbled upon the made-for-TV movie Emmanuelle 7 on late-night cable. The titular character (original star Sylvia Kristel had long-since vacated the lead role, although she did appear in a supporting capacity) spent the movie enthusiastically romping her way through cyber space. I remember it fondly but have little inclination to watch it again.
Tasked with reigniting Emmanuel’s loins is one Audrey Diwan, a hugely respected director whose smart film Happening won the Venice Film Festival in 2022. Working with equally gifted screenwriter Rebecca Zlotowski, there was a sliver of hope this might… actually…be… good?
Reader, it is not.
We meet our heroine in the first class cabin of a flight, where a handsome, sleazy looking man ogles her legs. Less than a minute later, they’re going at it in the loo. Emanuelle lands in Hong Kong, where we learn she works for a big corporation, tasked with finding faults at luxury hotels. Emmanuelle, however, is more interested in getting down and dirty with the guests.
The film employs an age-old narrative principle known as Chekhov’s Hottie, whereby if someone hot is introduced in the first act, they will almost certainly be smooshing genitals before the credits roll. After a peeping-Tom episode involving a room service waiter, she takes part in a threesome with a couple she meets at the bar and then enters a situationship with a young female escort. The one man she really wants to bone, however, remains frustratingly aloof.
Noémie Merlant, who starred in the brilliant Portrait of a Lady on Fire, plays the lead as a sort of sexual cypher, a blank canvas onto which fantasies could, in theory, be applied. She drifts emotionlessly through romantic encounters, sated but unmoved. Is she exploiting others? Is she being exploited? Does any of this make her happy? Who knows?
The sex itself is relatively tame, by both modern standards and the standards of the original. Sexuality is openly discussed – and openly practiced – but it’s frustratingly unsexy.
It’s all beautifully lit in the hazy neon hues obligatory for films shot in Hong Kong – a scene involving a tropical storm is particularly impressive – but there’s a sterility to it all. A tonal shift in the third act sees Emmanuelle escape the glossy confines of the hotel to roam the streets and speakeasies of Hong Kong but even here, without any sense of connection or jeopardy, it amounts to little more than pretty wallpaper.
The most puzzling thing about the whole affair is what on earth Naomi Watts is doing in it. She plays the manager of the hotel being assessed by Emmanuelle, essentially a throwaway role (she neither jumps nor is jumped by anyone, which is the yardstick by which roles in this movie are gauged) and her presence is most notable for her absurd – and deliberate – overacting. Is she the person Emmanuelle is destined to become should she remain on her current path? Again, who knows?
Watching Emmanuelle in a small cinema in Soho, surrounded by middle aged film critics, I found myself idly wondering how many of them were sporting erections during the sex scenes. And when your mind wanders to the tumescence of your peers rather than the tumescence on-screen, that’s a pretty damning indictment on the entire proposition.
• Emmanuelle is in cinemas now