A convincing character study about a woman on the verge

PAUL Verhoeven is a director who knows his way around a psychological thriller, especially when sex and violence are involved. His best-known protagonists have been flawed, female and formidable - multi-layered master manipulators with an interest in masochistic behaviour and twisted relationships. As it happens, it's a description that fits the title character in his latest film, Elle (screening at The Projector).

Verhoeven has made some war and sci-fi classics (Soldier of Orange, 1977, RoboCop, 1987) as well as a few outright duds (Showgirls, 1995), and he's also responsible for one of the most-discussed scenes in modern cinema history (the interrogation scene in Basic Instinct, 1992).

Ten years after his last movie (Black Book), it's perhaps not surprising that Elle has shocker value right from the start - it opens in mid-rape - and proceeds to take viewers on an emotional roller-coaster ride: desperate and dramatic one moment, light-hearted and comical the next.