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Cruel Intentions
***
Cinema
Releases - June 18, 1999
Rated on a 4-star
scale. USA. Written and directed by Roger Kumble; suggested by the novel
"Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by Choderlos de Laclos. Starring Ryan Phillippe,
Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Louise Fletcher, Joshua
Jackson, Eric Mabius, Sean Patrick Thomas.
Not long ago I reviewed "She's All That", a formulaic
and routine comedy romance, in which the most popular kid in school makes
a bet over a girl he eventually falls in love with. Having seen hundreds
of movies with similar plots, it gave me much pleasure to sit through
"Cruel Intentions", which has the same scenario, but a refreshing,
deliciously cunning tone.
It's a modern reworking of "Dangerous Liaisons",
I guess, and the opening credits note the same source material, the book
by Choderlos de Laclos. Ryan Phillippe, from "I Know What You Did Last Summer",
stars as cynical and ruthless teen playboy Sebastian Valmont, and Sarah Michelle
Gellar, his co-star in the 1997 slasher pic, plays his equally seductive
half-sister, the devious Kathryn Merteuil. The wonderfully demented pair
love to crush others through hurtful sexual conquests, but in the need to
spice up their games, the situation must stay interesting.
Sebastian therefore finds a challenge for himself,
success at which would do wonders for his reputation. The challenge is Annette
Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), the daughter of his school's new headmaster,
and infamous author of a national teen-magazine article, in which the virgin
beauty decries the idea of loveless sex. Kathryn, upon hearing his scheme,
makes Sebastian a wager -- if he does deflower Annette, he can roll in the
hay with Kathryn also. If he can't, he has to give her his classic Jaguar
convertible.
Another part of the story involves Cecile (Selma
Blair), an immature and hyperactive victim of the cruel half-siblings, who
Kathryn believes stole one of her men, causing her great
embarrassment.
The way the kids in "Cruel Intentions" set up
their prey, knock them down, then laugh about it over a post-coital cigarette
is involving and delightful. The film has the moral freedom to engage our
dark side because it doesn't take place in the real world -- no teenagers,
however much they might like to think they do, possess this combination of
being so attractive, seductive, intelligent, articulate, strategic, stylish,
telepathic and detached, as well as self-aware.
With this freedom in mind, I wish the movie had
the courage to live up to its comic potential, and end as cynically as it
started. It doesn't, since it's made by a dumb American studio for dumb American
adolescents, and takes an unsatisfying dramatic turn. Phillippe, since he's
the male lead, is deemed hero, and finds love and goodness, whereas female
Gellar is deemed villain, and punished.
The cast is superb, except in the denouement,
where they seemed as lost as I was to where the film's tone was headed. Phillippe
and Gellar, in their conspiratorial moments, use the rhythm of their eyes
and voices to create some old-school cinematic eroticism -- we don't see
private body parts in this movie, but its sexual ambience is unmistakable.
Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair are convincing and human as the duped maidens,
yet still hold us at sufficient arms' length for us to enjoy the scheming
against them.
But dammit, that climax still bugs me. It's borne
of a ridiculously earnest and inappropriate attack of morality, and requires
us to believe, of course, that Sebastian has genuinely fallen for Annette.
This makes no sense -- there's nothing to back it up, the film simply has
him declare it out of the blue -- but even if we did go along with the
development, it doesn't belong in this movie. Films with a conscience shouldn't
have us relish other peoples' misery for the first two thirds of their running
time -- if I'd taken "Cruel Intentions" seriously, I would have been disgusted.
Films with the guts to be conscienceless shouldn't tack on a cop-out soppy
ending. "Cruel Intentions" is worth seeing, but ultimately a disappointment
-- one of those flicks that starts out sure-footed, and ends up flat on its
face.
COPYRIGHT© 1999 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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