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Emmanuelle movie review: Noémie Merlant is wasted in stylish yet empty drama on female sexuality

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Emmanuelle movie review: Noémie Merlant is wasted in stylish yet empty drama on female sexuality

Emmanuelle movie review

Cast: Noémie Merlant, Naomi Watts, Will Sharpe

Director: Audrey Diwan

Star rating: ★★

Expectations were sky-high for Audrey Diwan’s next feature after the urgent and powerful abortion drama, Happening, which claimed the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2021. None of that urgency has infused her latest offering, Emmanuelle, a shockingly empty update of the erotic French novel. (Also read: The White Lotus Season 3 review: A brutal finale caps off the show’s weakest season yet)

Emmanuelle movie review: Noémie Merlant plays the titular protagonist in the Audrey Diwan film.

The premise

The film rests on Noémie Merlant, who stars as a luxury hotel inspector gathering information about the people and the place with quiet curiosity. She is keen to discover what happens behind the executive decisions made by the immaculately-suited manager Margot (Naomi Watts). There is an elusive visitor at the Rosefield Palace named Kei (Will Sharpe), who arrives, speaks illogical lines like he is “a Frequent International Traveler, a FIT,” and leaves.

For a film that wants to explore female sexuality and agency, Emmanuelle plays it too safe and pristine to warrant any interest in the journey of its lead heroine. Emmanuelle is presented without any backstory, her body framed from closeups, her face lit with a sort of puzzled expression. What is she thinking? What does she want? She does not know it herself, and neither does the viewer.

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Merlant looks beautiful in the pixie cut and is styled glamorously, but the actor looks out of place and blanketed. Then there is Naomi Watts, who seems surprised to even exercise that British accent in a totally thankless role. Will Sharpe’s nod is unfit to be a FIT here, and the actor is wasted in a severely underwritten character.

Poor screenplay and dialogue

There’s a puzzling lack of depth in Diwan and co-screenwriter Rebecca Zlotowski’s screenplay, with almost no focus on building this titular character from her encounters and interactions. More interest seems to lie in the production design, with the luxurious hotel lobbies and suites- framed as if Diwan was also making a case for a hotel advertisement. The dialogues are strictly one-note and sometimes illogical at places, especially when they are rendered with such stubbornness amid the elite hotel setting.

Emmanuelle is a strange case of a film which is not aware of what it wants to be. Forget the need for female gaze, there is no gaze at all. Emmanuelle is self-aware of a certain subtext. Still, Diwan’s revisionist approach stops at giving the female protagonist a sense of autonomy without knowing what that truly means for her. It is just too many exquisite hotel shots, luxury food arrangement, and aimless talk to actually mean anything. She barely has an orgasm, and the sex scenes feel like they are shot in some kind of emotional vacuum- devoid of any psychological and emotional burden.

There is too much attention to rhythm, style and proportion in a film that warranted more of a free fall, a stirring anticipation for mess. Emmanuelle is aimless, dramatically inert and a little too safe to invest in.

Emmanuelle is available to stream on Lionsgate Play.

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I Know Exactly How You Die – Review | Indie Slasher | Heaven of Horror

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I Know Exactly How You Die – Review | Indie Slasher | Heaven of Horror

Watch I Know Exactly How I Die on VOD

The director of I Know Exactly How I Die is Alexandra Spieth, who ensures a tight pace and some gorgeous shots. She previously directed Stag and created and starred in the web-series [Blank] My Life. The screenplay comes from Mike Corey, and I do really like the plot and evolution of this story.

As already mentioned, the star Rushabh Patel is the executive producer. As a result, this movie is billed as “Rushabh Patel’s I Know Exactly How I Die“, which I am not a fan of. Unless Rushabh Patel is famous in ways I am not familiar with – nor is IMDb, as this is his first and so far only credit there.

This is like people wondering if Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is connected to Stranger Things, because the media keeps referring to it as a new show from The Duffer Brothers. Sure, they produced it, but Haley Z. Boston created the original story and wrote the screenplay. And she’s not even a newcomer.

Okay, rant over, but I just don’t understand the marketing and press decisions of it all.

Anyway, as already mentioned, the practical effects in I Know Exactly How I Die are gorgeous. Any slasher fan should enjoy the concept of the plot as well as those amazing practical effects. And yet, you will have to endure a little terrible CGI, but this is an indie production, so budget restraints come into play. Of course, so does choosing the best talent, and that did not happen for CGI here!

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I Know Exactly How You Die is out on VOD from April 7, 2026. You can rent it on Digital HD from your preferred platform, including Prime Video and Fandango at Home. The film will also be available on DVD.

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‘Super Mario’ fans ignore weak reviews and send sequel to $372.5 million global box office debut, biggest opening of the year for a studio film | Fortune

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‘Super Mario’ fans ignore weak reviews and send sequel to 2.5 million global box office debut, biggest opening of the year for a studio film | Fortune

Mixed reviews didn’t dissuade mass audiences from buying tickets to the “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which scored the biggest opening of the year for a Hollywood movie. The Illumination and Nintendo co-production earned $130.9 million over the weekend and a massive $190.1 million in its first five days in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Universal Pictures released the sequel globally on Wednesday, capitalizing on kids’ spring break vacations in the week leading up to the Easter holiday. With an estimated $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets, the film is looking at an astronomical $372.5 million debut — the latest hit for the PG rating. Mexico is leading the international bunch with $29.1 million from 5,136 screens, followed by the U.K. and Ireland with $19.7 million.

The animated sequel, Illumination CEO Christopher Meledandri’s 16th movie in 16 years, is the industry’s biggest debut since “Avatar: Fire and Ash” launched over Christmas. The Chinese movie “Pegasus 3,” which was not a Motion Picture Association release, has the slight edge for the 2026 global record, however.

It’s also a dip from the first film, which opened to $204 million domestically during the same five-day time frame in 2023 ($147 of that was from Friday, Saturday and Sunday). “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” went on to be the second biggest movie of 2023, with over $1.3 billion in box office receipts.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which features returning voice actors Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day, had a massive footprint in the U.S. and Canada, where it played in 4,252 theaters, including 421 IMAX and 1,345 premium large format screens. It made $15 million from the IMAX screens alone.

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“It’s exactly the kind of broad, crowd-pleasing release that brings people into theatres,” AMC Chairman and CEO Adam Aron said in a statement.

It also cost around $110 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. But it arrived on a wave of less-than-stellar reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently sitting at a lousy 40%. Ticket buyers were more enthusiastic, however.

The family audience gave the movie five out of five stars according to PostTrak exit polls, while general audiences gave it four stars and an A- on CinemsScore. Audiences skewed male (61%) overall, although when it came to families attending there were slightly more moms (52%) than dads.

“These kind of audience reaction scores just point to a ridiculously strong run, not only throughout the spring, but likely into the summer as well,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” will open in Japan later this month.

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Last year, the first weekend in April hosted the launch of another video game blockbuster, “A Minecraft Movie,” which had a bigger three-day debut ($162.8 million) but didn’t have a “Project Hail Mary” in a strong second place, meaning the weekend overall is still up around 5%.

As expected, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ended the two-week reignof the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi hit “Project Hail Mary,” which landed in second its third weekend in theaters where it added $30.7 million, bringing its running domestic total to $217.2 million. Worldwide, it’s made $420.7 million to date.

Third place went to A24’s provocative new movie “The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which made an estimated $14.4 million from 3,087 theaters. The film’s stars have been on a massive and charming press blitz to promote their R-rated movie about a engaged couple grappling with an unnerving revelation, which cost a reported $28 million to produce. The reveal has drummed up a fair amount of cultural discourse. While reviews have been more positive than not (82% on Rotten Tomatoes), it got a less promising B CinemaScore.

“Hoppers” and “Reminders of Him” rounded out the top five. And the box office outlook looks bright overall, up around 30% from last year.

“There’s no better opening act for a great summer than a huge month of April powered by a mega blockbuster like the ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,’” said Paul Dergarabedian, comscore’s head of marketplace trends.

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Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1.“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” $130.9 million.

2.“Project Hail Mary,” $30.7 million.

3.“The Drama,” $14.4 million.

4.“Hoppers,” $5.8 million.

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5.“Reminders of Him,” $2.2 million.

6.“A Great Awakening,” $2.1 million.

7.“They Will Kill You,” $1.9 million.

8.“Dhurandhar The Revenge,” $1.9 million.

9.“Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” $1.8 million.

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10.“Scream 7,” 915,000.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: THE YETI

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Movie Review: THE YETI
Rating: R Stars: Brittany Allen, Eric Nelsen, Jim Cummings, Christina Bennett Lind, Gene Gallerano, Linc Hand, Elizabeth Cappuccino, William Sadler, Corbin Bernsen Writers: Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta Directors: Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment Release Date: April 4, 2026 and April 8, 2026 (AMC theatrical); April 10, 2026 (digital) Written and directed by the team of Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta, THE YETI is set in the ‘40s and aspires to look as though it was made in the ‘50s. Its style seems to be part of its reason for being. It’s agreeable as a […]Read On »
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