AFTER a brief introductory shot of a cat’s face, Paul Verhoeven’s film gets down to tin tacks. The cat is watching a masked man raping its owner, Michèle (Isabelle Huppert), on the floor in her living room.

A divorcèe, Michèle runs a video-game company. She detests her father, in prison for life after committing a collection of murders and sexual offences against children. Neither is she all that fond of her ancient mother Irene who gets her kicks from personable men of whatever age so long as they fulfil her sexual desire. Her adult son is a bit of a twit, with a pregnant girlfriend.

David Birke’s screenplay adapting a novel by Philippe Djian sustains a film that runs for 133 minutes, as frank as any not restrained by an X-rating may be. It’s a tour de force from Huppert who, at age 63 when the film was made, confirms my opinion that in the longevity stakes, handsome beats beautiful every time.

On screen for most of the film, she plays a woman who begins by hating her assailant but refuses to report the rape. And her watchability factor is stratospheric.

The rapist makes further visits. Michèle begins to discover pleasure in the sensations and their encouragement for her to explore new sexual pleasure, which it does more by implication than explicitness. Its portrayal of bourgeois life in an upmarket Paris suburb is interesting and possibly credible.