Before this year’s Cannes film festival, the idea of a new Paul Verhoeven thriller was undeniably intriguing but hardly the suggestion of a sure thing. The once infamous film-maker has been rather quiet since 2006’s Black Book and, as much fun as it is to get drunk and rewatch Showgirls, it’s still a remarkably awful and hilariously self-serious piece of work.

Elle was predicted to be nothing but a curio, tagged on to the end of a festival filled with more obvious surface-level substance and pomp. But it turned out we were all underestimating what perverted pleasures he had in store. How on earth could we have prepared for something quite so brazen and demented as Elle?

Admittedly, a clue was in the casting. Isabelle Huppert, whose work with Michael Haneke alone shows that she is unafraid to cross, stab and confess sickening desires to the line, is given free rein to deliver a staggeringly bold performance. In a film that covers infidelity, violent rape, spousal abuse and mass murder, she retains an icy control over the mayhem and, along with a zinger-filled script from David Birke (from Philippe Djian’s novel), ensures riotous laughter throughout.

As well as providing her the opportunity to give a career-best turn, Elle also reminds us of Verhoeven’s untempered ability to confound and delight. His film is entirely, stubbornly unapologetic in its devious amorality, delivering cattle-prod shocks without warning and offering up 2016’s most compelling “nasty woman”.

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