CRUEL INTENTIONS (1999)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2005
Although faced with long-term creative crisis, Hollywood very
reluctantly takes literary classics as the basis for its commercial
movies. The reason for that is in its dependence on predominantly
teenager audience, which has little understanding for any kind of
literature, especially literature written centuries ago. However, in
late 1990s some of Hollywood producers found a way to solve this problem
– they would simply borrow plots and put them in the modern setting,
while the characters would be transformed into modern-day teenagers. LES
LIAISONS DANGEROUS, classic 1782 novel by French author Pierre Choderlos
de Laclos, has already served as a basis for highly-regarded 1988
Hollywood adaptation DANGEROUS LIASIONS, directed by Stephen Frears.
Eleven years later, same novel served as a basis for 1999 version CRUEL
INTENTIONS, written and directed by Roger Kumble.
The plot is set in modern-day New York and the protagonists are people
with lifestyle not that different from aristocracy in pre-revolutionary
France – teenage children of American upper class who were born with the
silver spoon in their mouths and whose life revolves around alcohol,
sex, drugs, fast cars and any luxury imaginable. Two such specimens are
half-siblings Sebastian Valmont (played by Ryan Philippe) and Kathryn
Merteuill (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar). While the former deflowers
debutantes for sport, the latter uses sex to rule her prep school as
supreme manipulator. Good-looking Sebastian, who got bored with easy
conquests, decides to make a bet with Kathryn– he must have sex with
Annette Hargrove (played by Reese Witherspoon), daughter of their prep
school principal and self-declared proponent of virtue. If he succeeds,
Kathryn will fulfil his most perverse incestuous fantasies; if he loses,
he will have to give up his vintage 1956 Jaguar. Sebastian gets to work,
but Annette proves to be much harder conquest that he has imagined and
things don't get better when he begins having some genuine romantic
feelings for her.
CRUEL INTENTIONS isn't the first attempt to make a modern film version
of LES LIAISONS DANGEROUS. In 1959 Roger Vadim had his own, not
particularly successful, version. CRUEL INTENTIONS should have been much
better, and for two reasons. It was made with `R' rating in mind and,
therefore, with less content limitations that plagued other teen movies.
So, the audiences in 1999 had rare opportunities to watch teenagers use
profanities, abuse drugs and engage in all kinds of unorthodox sexual
practices. With almost every character being utterly amoral or stupid,
CRUEL INTENTIONS also had potential of being great `guilty pleasure'. To
a certain degree, film fulfils that promise. Sarah Michelle Gellar,
although far from the standards set by Glenn Close in 1988 version, is
incredibly effective as evil, manipulative character so different from
the hero of BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Ryan Phillippe is also good in
his role of high-school heartthrob. Unfortunately, Reese Witherspoon
fails to have chemistry with Philippe, despite being romantically linked
with him in real life. Some supporting players are, however, very good,
especially Selma Blair in the role of naïve Cecile.
At the very end of the film, CRUEL INTENTIONS betrays its concept by
having something that WILD THINGS – film very similar in tone – didn't
have. Instead of showing the world of New York youth aristocracy as
corrupt and beyond hope in its decadence – just like pre-revolutionary
France – Kumble bows to 1990s Hollywood conventions and injects
combination of syrupy sentimentality, `politically correct'
pseudo-feminism, tragically inadequate score and poor direction. The
film which was supposed to be `guilty pleasure' ends guilty of not
living to its potential.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
Review written on March 30th 2005
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com
Film Reviews in Croatian/Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom
http://draxreview.blogspot.com
Draxblog Movie Reviews
http://www.ofcs.org
Online Film Critics Society
========== X-RAMR-ID: 39632 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1373343 X-RT-TitleID: 1087428 X-RT-SourceID: 1650 X-RT-AuthorID: 1307 X-RT-RatingText: 4/10
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