Directed by Roger Kumble
Writing credits:

Miramax * 88 minutes

In this case, the guilty pleasure is Roger Kumble's gleefully trashy CRUEL INTENTIONS, yet another teen updating of a classic novel. This time it's Choderlos deLaclos' 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses. If this sounds familiar, it's because you remember the stellar 1988 version which starred Glenn Close as the scheming and amoral Comtesse de Marteul, and the oily John Malkovich as the equally scheming Viscount Valmont; or less likely, Milos Forman's 1989 VALMONT, with Annette Bening weighing in as a kittenish Merteul and Colin Firth as a boyish and charming Valmont. Or, if you're even older than I am (and right now that seems impossible), you might remember Roger Vadim's 1959 rendition with Jeanne Moreau and Gerard Phillippe.

Nothing makes better cinema than sex, love, death, more sex, fancy costumes, and labyrinthine intrigue (as last year's ELIZABETH so gloriously demonstrated). Why should teens and twentysomethings be exempt from all the fun? They shouldn't says director Roger Kumble, and so we have CRUEL INTENTIONS.

CRUEL INTENTIONS seems to be first and foremost a showcase for WB Network teen show actors (and indeed, I'm told by said aforementioned co-worker that you miss a lot if you haven't done your homework by becoming a devoté of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and DAWSON'S CREEK), plus Hollywood's Most Adorable Couple, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe (who seems to have appeared in every film released in 1998). Sarah Michelle Gellar (of BUFFY fame) and Phillippe are Kathryn Merteul and Sebastian Valmont, two insufferably bratty high school kids who happen to be stepsiblings. As is inevitable in such flicks, their presumably self-indulgent parents are off in Bali (clearly a synonym for "far, far away"). Kathryn is a two-faced bitch, who is bored with being "the Marcia f*cking Brady of the Upper East Side, and who has just been dumped by her boyfriend for what appears to be a complete moron (Selma Blair, allegedly another WB refugee). Sebastian is a bored womanizer at the tender age of something-teen, who can, and indeed has, had any girl he wants, except his stepsister.

Kathryn sets out to destroy the girl by having Sebastian seduce her, but Sebastian has bigger fish to fry, in this case, the author of a Seventeen magazine article about the virtue of virginity. Said virgin, Annette Hargrove, hails from Kansas, but in a plot contrivance of truly titanic proportions, just happens to be the daughter of the new headmaster at the school attended by teen libertines Kathryn and Sebastian and also just happens to be spending the summer at Sebastian's aunt's! Woo-hoo! Katherine bets Sebastian his prized 1956 Jaguar in return for her lusted-after bod that he cannot seduce the pure-as-the-driven-snow Annette, and he takes the bet. Unfortunately, Annette happens to be a Truly Wonderful individual, and he finds himself falling in love. The rest is, for the most part, true to Stephen Frears' film.

Despite some truly hilarious scenes, some not intentionally so, and some utterly ghastly lines destined for Internet WAV File Hell (such as "I need you to speed up her sexual awakening"), the film is actually quite entertaining and interesting, if only for its revelation that yes, high school kids really ARE even nastier than you remember. The sets are sumptuous in a nouveau riche sort of way, with the most killer indoor pool since MEET JOE BLACK. That this mess works as well as it does is due to the production values, some great designer sportswear (and its opposite, some of the worst shoulder-padded, peplumed bitchwear this side of Joan Collins), cameo appearances by some fine adult actors (Louse Fletcher, of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST fame as Valmont's aunt, Swoosie Kurtz as his psychiatrist, and Christine Baranski, utterly hilarious as Cecile's mother), and valiant, if varyingly successful, performances by its attractive young cast.

Gellar, who resembles a young Lindsay Wagner (there I go, showing my age again), is serviceable enough as Kathryn, although she resembles a petulant brat rebelling against nothing, more than a conniver getting revenge on her restrictive society. It's clear that Gellar grew up as a kid who bribed her babysitters: "You can bring your boyfriend here if I can watch DYNASTY", and studied Alexis religiously. Selma Blair (Cecile) has taken a beating from critics, and justifiably so, for her interpretation of Cecile as a clumsy, coltish dolt, rather than an innocent. She is just awful, and I cringed every time she appeared on screen. When Sebastian literally throws her out of bed after seducing her, I applauded him. She deserves it just for being such a terrible actress; never mind that her seduction is uncomfortably close to a date rape. Her infamous "lesbian kiss" scene with Gellar (which seems to drive men wild, and no one can explain to me why) is a hideous waste of celluloid, and not because of its subject matter. Joshua Jackson, who I'm told appears on WB's Dawson's Creek, is fun as the gratuitous gay friend (named, of course Blaine, which of course made me think of John Cryer's immortal line from PRETTY IN PINK: "Blaine? That's not a name, it's a major appliance!"); like THE DAILY SHOW's flamboyant Frank DeCaro in a blonde wig.

The real show, however, belongs to the prodigiously talented Reese Witherspoon (PLEASANTVILLE, ELECTION) and real life hubby Phillippe. Witherspoon is such a natural talent that she just leaps off the screen, and whenever she's in the scene, the entire movie comes to life. She continues to impress with each time out, and her young spouse knew well what he was doing when he begged her to take this part. She makes Annette more than just a blindly virtuous cipher. Her Annette is smart, strong, saucy, and very much in control; which makes her accelerated affections for Valmont seem not quite credible, at least initially. As for Phillippe, well, he actually seems awake for once, as if Reese plied him liberally with Starbucks before filming. Except for a tendency to express exasperation by pursing his lips prissily (making him look more like Dana Carvey's Church Lady than a seducer), his sexy/malevolent reptilian charm is perfect for Valmont, right down to his deadpan, highly enunciated John Malkovich interpretation. A scene in which Valmont and Annette go for a swim (in which he proves once and for all his membership in the Christopher Eccleston Society For Flashing Your Bum In Every Picture) has him circling her like a school of sharks, to the tune of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" (in perhaps a tribute to yet another sexy/malevolent role for which whom Phillippe would be perfect cast in a remake, the teen goon Alex in Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE).

Every now and then, a young man selects a woman who's Good For Him, and in Witherspoon, Phillippe has done just that. When she's on screen with him, he transcends the sulkiness that is his custom and seems almost human. Indeed, she makes him a better actor, and when he smiles at her, it's warm and genuine, rather than his customary diabolical leer, one which could make birds fall dead from the trees. If one can take the sweet loveliness of their scenes together outside of the context of this film, in which they are jarringly out of place, it's easy to see these two as a potentially dynamite screen duo with real staying power.

CRUEL INTENTIONS has received some of the most vicious reviews I've seen since SHOWGIRLS, to which it's often compared. Much of this is undoubtedly from critics who have children and are fundamentally disturbed with the degree of sexual obsession these teens possess and the idea that kids could be so cruel. Well, I don't have children to protect against sex, but as for cruelty, I can say that yes, folks, they are that cruel. Like this summer's SOUTH PARK, this is a movie about kids that adults should see, as a cautionary tale about what happens to kids who are neglected, whether their parents are in Bali or just clueless.

That said, yes, the film is deeply flawed. The dialogue is horribly written and where the performances are bad they are horrid. The most annoying part of this film, however, isn't even the bad dialogue, or even Blair's performance, but the mandatory inclusion of sequences just made for music video and the soundtrack CD. In this case there are not just one, but two such sequences, and the song lyrics set the scene (just in case you couldn't tell what was happening without them). NOTTING HILL and YOU'VE GOT MAIL are guilty of the same cinematic crime -- an unfortunate trend in contemporary Hollywood fare.

Yes, CRUEL INTENTIONS is a bag of sh*t. But, to quote The Firesign Theatre (ugh -- showing my age yet again), "it's really GREAT sh*t, Mrs. Pressky!"


CRUEL INTENTIONS official site