Emmanuelle: Audrey Diwan’s film follows a hotel inspector who travels to Hong Kong to investigate the situation at a luxury hotel that is not performing as well as expected. It is also a new interpretation of a famed softcore franchise, one that feels uncalled for since the film can stand on its own. The protagonist, well defended by Noémie Merlant, is, by force of her profession, trained to evaluate every prospective pleasure from an objective point of view, and is therefore unable to actually enjoy them. It is a cold performance, as called for, but nicely modulated. Will Sharpe plays the mysterious man who takes her out of her comfort zone. The film is coldly sensuous, beyond the nudity and sex: the environments (created by production designer Katia Wyszkop) are elegant and enticing, costume designer Jürgen Doering knows how to value Merlant (not a hard task, truth be told), cinematographer Laurent Tangy captures it with a stylish camerawork, and composers Evgueni and Sacha Galperine contribute with an interesting musical score.