Emmanuelle (2024)

nightlife, samples the attentions of the decadently obliging Sir John and becomes increasingly fascinated by Kei, a solitary guest who claims to design dams and seems immune to her practiced seduction. The harder Kei is to reach, the more he gets under her skin. Their conversations turn into a slow game of pursuit and withdrawal, while her assignment against Margot becomes harder to separate from the hotel chain’s ruthless culture of control. Eventually Emmanuelle follows Kei beyond the hotel’s polished bubble and into the crowded, scruffier maze of Chungking Mansions, hoping that danger, curiosity or simple human contact might penetrate the armour she has built around herself. Diwan is reaching for an adult story about a powerful woman who has mastered sex as behaviour but lost pleasure as an emotion. That is an interesting reversal of the old Emmanuelle fantasy, although the film often feels deliberately airless: the dialogue is stiff, the encounters are clinical and Merlant spends a lot of time gazing into nowhere after supposedly passionate acts. At its best, that coldness makes the picture uncanny—a sexual odyssey in which everybody can touch but nobody connects. At its worst, it resembles a luxury perfume advert that forgot to include the perfume. Still, its better visual ideas, including long, controlled takes and an unexpectedly erotic encounter with an ice cube, linger longer than the screenplay’s solemn speeches.

This is very much an Emmanuelle for the corporate, globally connected 2020s rather than the carefree sexual tourism of the 1970s. Hong Kong was used as both setting and shooting location, with the anonymous marble, glass, rooftop pools and endless corridors of the luxury hotel contrasted against neon streets, cramped passages and the multicultural bustle of Chungking Mansions. The hotel is photographed as a gorgeous prison: every surface gleams, every desire can apparently be ordered, and every employee is being watched or judged. Outside, the city finally gives the film some sweat and pulse, with flashes of Wong Kar-wai-style colour and nocturnal romanticism. Do not expect a playful bonk-fest. The vibe is slow, cerebral, lonely and faintly dreamlike—less champagne orgy, more existential crisis in silk underwear.

Noémie Merlant is undeniably beautiful here: poised, athletic, often naked and able to switch from executive authority to hungry vulnerability with the smallest change in her stare. Her Emmanuelle is not an innocent discovering sex but a grown woman irritated that all the available bodies still cannot give her the release she craves. Chacha Huang brings a looser, younger sensuality as Zelda, while Naomi Watts supplies immaculate mature glamour and sharpened claws as Margot. There is nudity, simulated intercourse, oral attention and some group play, but considerably less explicit sex than the title’s reputation suggests. The camera shows skin without turning the film into pornography; indeed, several encounters are intentionally mechanical or joyless. Merlant provides the flesh and allure in generous measure—the heat, frustratingly, remains locked behind glass.

A Visual Feast!! 🔥 Noémie Merlant 🔥 (of Curiosa & Portrait of a Lady on Fire) is Emmanuelle. Shot in the Beautiful Rosefield Hotel Hong Kong. A Perfect Anti-dote to the ugliness in our world.

Juiced version – 49 minutes.