Irreversible: Straight Cut review: New version of notorious French drama remains a difficult watch

Gaspar Noé’s 2002 French language drama Irreversible is one of those films that routinely appears on lists of “The Best Movies You Never Want To See Again,” as well as many critics’ personal all-time worsts. Regardless of where you stand, it’s not an easy sit—even Noé’s biggest defenders will concede he likes to provoke with deliberate ugliness. (Irreversible contains not just a 9-minute rape scene, but characters displaying racism, homophobia, transphobia, and pedophilic tendencies.) Like Memento, the original film plays its scenes, most of which appear as single-takes, in reverse order. The action begins with a maelstrom of violence in a subterranean sex club. As the story continues backward, we learn that the violence is payback for a brutal rape and assault that happened earlier; going even further back, we experience the life of a loving couple before all the violence took place. In the newly re-edited and restored Irreversible: Straight Cut, the story is now told in chronological order, which mainly reveals that all men are awful. At least in this story.

It seems unlikely that any viewer would come to either cut of Irreversible without knowing that it infamously centers on a brutal rape. So whichever direction one watches it in, the shadow of the act hangs over everything, delivering a stomach-churning inevitability en route to the reveal. In reverse order, we first see the violence that the rape provokes, then we wonder how these aggressive men got that way, then we learn about their motivation, and then we feel sad upon seeing how good things were before it all happened. But once the timeline goes linear, that all proves to be relative.

Originally, the idyllic scenes with Alex (Monica Bellucci) and Marcus (Vincent Cassel) played after the rape. In the recut, the story starts with them, so a different picture emerges, beginning with Marcus playfully ignoring Alex’s many requests to stop doing things she finds annoying, like stealing money from her to buy booze for a party. She doesn’t indicate that it bothers her—she comes across as fairly expert in handling insecure male egos—but for this new version of the story, it’s now the beginning of a slippery slope.

Alex and Marcus are in an odd friendship triangle with Pierre (Albert Dupontel), who used to date Alex, while Marcus, although passionate about Alex, still wants to do cocaine and kiss other girls in the bathroom. While both men try to cock-block each other, Alex leaves them both at a party to go home early, leading to the film’s most infamous scene.

Early on in this cut, Marcus makes a comment about having stolen Pierre’s girl. Alex corrects his language: she is not an object to be stolen; she has made up her own mind, thanks. But once she’s assaulted, she becomes a transactional object to everyone—to the cops, to the local gangs willing to name the rapist for a fee, and even to Marcus and Pierre, who would rather inflict violence on the perpetrator than sit by Alex’s hospital bed. In the reverse-order cut, it might have taken a second viewing to realize that the man beaten to death in vengeance is not the rapist known as the Tenia, but rather his friend. The Tenia (Jo Prestia) gets off scot-free, which is clear immediately this way around, and emphasizes the utter futility of the violence and hate that Marcus and Pierre engage in.

Pierre offers Marcus a final lifeline before they take that fateful step into the dark, disorienting sex club called The Rectum—he suggests they go see Alex in the hospital, and Marcus responds by smashing the car he’s in with a metal bar. From there, it’s Pierre who loses all control. Full of resentment for his unfulfilling sex life with Alex—which was mainly his fault—he unloads with every ounce of built-up frustration on the man he believes to be the Tenia, anger that’s been ignited by the sparks of rage and revenge.

Noé isn’t wrong to suggest that Irreversible: Straight Cut is a different movie, even a revelatory one, from the original, though it’s still capable of leaving a viewer shaken despite knowledge of what’s coming. For a movie known for being one you never want to see again, its director has created a compelling reason to watch it anew. The rape and beating remain horrific, while the bigotry and slurs have aged poorly. Ever the provocateur, Noé likely doesn’t care if you think the hate is his rather than his characters’, but he signals even more clearly here that the protagonists you thought were good—at least in intent—actually aren’t. Not everyone’s ready for such a nihilistic worldview. But one could argue that it explains a lot about toxic masculinity today.

(Irreversible: Straight Cut opens theatrically on February 10)