A perverse male fantasy and a waste of a great performance by Huppert

I have seldom, maybe never, seen a movie with such a cast of totally unlikable characters as we see in the recent Elle. Yes, Isabel Huppert is terrific and deserved her Oscar nomination (and maybe she should have won the award), as she totally dominates the movie with the force of her character for the entire 2+ hours: Is she in every single scene? I think so. But that said, what a horrible movie this is: The characters are universally despicable: sexist, faithless, crude, mocking, foolish, feckless, narcissist - and that doesn't even cover the serial rapist and stalker, who is just plain sick. In fact, the only character don't despise is Huppert's father (he has no speaking role), a serial killer serving a life term for 27 murders. The movie opens with Huppert enduring brutal rape and attack. Afterwards, she cleans up the broken cutlery, takes a bath, goes to work. She never reports the rape, and mentions in passing to a group of her friends/co-workers. She continues her life, even though the rapist continues to stalk her and leave her threatening messages - she just doesn't seem to care. She and her best friend run a videogame company, and the game they're marketing is full of violent rape scenes - she prods her staff to make the scenes even more gruesome. When we're not w/ her we're with her super-botxed mother who's living w/ a gigolo about 1/3 her age, with her son who leeches money off her and can't even hold down a fast-food job, his fiancee who's a harridan of the worst order, her partner's husband who comes on to her right in her office in the middle of the work day - I can't go on with this list, it's so ridiculous. And - spoiler coming - once Huppert is aware of who her attacker is, she pursues him - not for vengeance but to continue the attacks. Despite whatever intentions the direct (Verhoeven, known for his action films) may have had, this is not a movie about a powerful, independent woman who is frank about her sexual desires; it's a perverse male fantasy that goes so far as to suggest that some women actually enjoy assault and rape and would come back for more if they could. This is move is wrong on so many counts - what a waste of a great acting performance.