Elles | (2011.)

The most compelling thematic maneuver in Elles is the mirroring of the students' lives with Anne’s sterile domestic existence. Anne seemingly has it all: a successful career, a wealthy husband, and a beautiful apartment. Yet, Szumowska frames her home not as a sanctuary, but as a site of profound emotional disconnect.

Małgorzata Szumowska’s 2011 film Elles offers a provocative exploration of modern female sexuality, autonomy, and class division. By juxtaposing the lives of Alice and Alicja—two young university students engaged in sex work—with Anne, a privileged journalist researching their stories, the film challenges traditional cinematic representations of sex work. This paper argues that Elles operates as a critique of the modern bourgeois family, suggesting that the transactional nature of sex work is mirrored by the emotional and physical compromises required of women within conventional domestic structures. Through its unflinching gaze, Szumowska’s work dismantles the binary of the "empowered" versus "exploited" woman, forcing a reexamination of agency under late capitalism. Introduction Elles (2011.)

: A Polish immigrant student who views her clients with a detached, clinical sense of business. She uses the income to achieve independence and class mobility in a foreign city. The most compelling thematic maneuver in Elles is