I suppose Alfred Hitchcock makes for an easy scapegoat.  Surely, his role in the creation of the ice queen archetype that plagues so many of our contemporary cinematic portraits of career women (all striving for control in a patriarchal society before smacking into the realization that—surprise!—they really just want to be dominated) is clearly on reverential display in Assayas’s demonlover. Unless we can consider inflicting this dangerous social branding on a brunette rather than a blonde “progressive,” the images of corporate femininity that pop up in demonlover are nothing if not shocking in their absolute predictability.

There’s Diane, the cover girl corporate climber (Connie Nielsen); Elise, the secretive secretary (Chloë Sevigny); Elaine, the demanding diva (Gina Gershon); Karen, the aging executive being tossed for a newer model (Dominique Reymond). Assayas employs them all, with only minor intellectual upgrades to their simplistic molds.  Rather than reflecting on the impossible contradictions placed upon these women’s heads (as each copes with the emotions=weakness brand of math that keeps the glass ceiling windexed while still maintaining their inherent femininity), demonlover instead wields its women as capitalist weapons devoid of any real ammunition, not unlike the pornographic representations the titular contract is trying to spread on a global scale.

The story, which delves into the porntastic realm of manga anime (itself a star pupil in the “take it and like it” rape fantasy school of thought) and the prevalence of masculine wish fulfillment on the net, is the sort that feels the need to follow hints of lesbianism with curative hetero kisses, thereby oddly debunking the very cultural taboos it strives to bring to light.  Moreover, by framing sexual violence not only as a tradable commodity, but one that can be calmly accepted and dealt with by women themselves (one perverse example: the sight of Diane coyly lighting up a cigarette after watching a manga in which a multitude of writhing cartoon Kewpie dolls are sexually assaulted by a many-pronged octo-penis), demonlover entices the spectator to associate with these women via cool dissociation.  Instead of feeling suitably out of control along with Assayas’s feminine subjects, we are asked to back away to peep show distance and enjoy the proceedings with an emotional blank slate.

The rare scenarios that attempt to subvert this commentary on the socially perceived “submissive” nature of female sexuality (perfectly encapsulated in the image of Elise playing video games in the nude, ruthlessly blowing away army men with her electronic equivalent of a strap-on) amount to little more than titillation under the guise of protest.  Diane, conversely, is afforded the right to inflict violence in reality—rather than toying around with virtual dominance fantasies—but with damning results.  Though she does literally plug her lover/rapist/co-worker pre-orgasm, the end result of her momentary triumph is to be reduced to a sexual pawn for American teenagers wielding Daddy’s credit card.  Diane is consequently demonized one degree further, and the audience is implicated in her fall through this alternately disturbing and dull rabbit hole of sexual violence.  Whether role-playing the dominatrix, the pliant conquest, or the sex slave, she is not once allowed to escape from the story’s condemnation of her seemingly offensive status as independent woman.

A girl-on-girl catfight, ironically enough, is the film’s only moment of gender transcendence, effectively desexualizing a trope that has become little more than a choreographed excuse for women to rip each other’s clothes off.  Serving as narrative axis, the catfight does what the film as a whole cannot: infuse its female characters with strength beyond their own repressed sexual wiles, recodifying the femme fatale as a personne fatale, in all its sloppy reality.  For a film that fetishizes violence to an infinite degree, the hair-pulling and throat-slashing is surprisingly obscured, then drenched in harsh lighting that diffuses the pleasurable response we have been conditioned to exude upon such a display.  The overall effect is something akin to a wake-up call; ironically, it takes a moment of brutality to shock us back into awareness that these women are actually people and not mere playthings.

To grow rankled at demonlover’s portrayal of women is undoubtedly to be written off as political correctness, or, worse yet, prudishness.  Yet, as film has proven time and again, misogyny (however mild) can still be sexy, De Palma being only one of the multitude of filmmakers who routinely toys with the archetypes that Assayas is employing to greater effect.  To put it crudely, demonlover lacks anything resembling an orgasmic payoff that would justify such treatment of the female sex. Dissatisfied, one is simply left to light up a cigarette in hopes that the next go around might be more enjoyable.