Director Paul Verhoeven, that eternal Dutch wild child (even though he's 78), delivers a perverse kick whether his films are terrific (Spetters, Robocop, Black Book) or just terrific trash (Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers). His new surprise package, Elle, is a dark comedy about ... rape. Like I said, the dude is a button pusher.

"No American actress would ever take on such an amoral movie," Verhoeven has stated. So the great French actress Isabelle Huppert steps into the role of Michele Leblanc, the divorced CEO of a Paris-based video-game company that...