Cruel Intentions Review
by Scott Renshaw (renshaw AT inconnect DOT com)March 4th, 1999
CRUEL INTENTIONS
(Columbia)
Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Joshua Jackson, Sean Patrick Thomas, Christine Baranski. Screenplay: Roger Kumble, suggested by "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by Choderlos De Laclos.
Producer: Neal H. Moritz.
Director: Roger Kumble.
MPAA Rating: R (profanity, sexual situations, brief nudity, adult themes, drug use)
Running Time: 97 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Hollywood has always been obsessed with youth, but that obsession finally appears to be spinning out of control. In these halcyon days of 'N Sync, "Dawson's Creek" and the like, it now seems that you can sell any pitch in Hollywood by naming a piece of source material and tagging on the phrase "...but with teenagers." The most recent wave may have started with CLUELESS ("Jane Austen's _Emma_, but with teenagers"), and has since generated such classics as THE FACULTY ("THE THING, but with teenagers") and SHE'S ALL THAT ("PYGMALION, but with teenagers"). So why not CRUEL INTENTIONS? Why not "DANGEROUS LIAISONS, but with teenagers?"
Because it's a really lousy idea, that's why, made even worse by appalling execution. The principle players are Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) and Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Manhattan step-siblings who are birds of a poisonous feather. Sebastian delights in deflowering innocents and building his reputation as a cad; Kathryn seeks vengeance on a sweet young thing named Cecile (Selma Blair) who unwittingly stole away her boyfriend. United in their disdain for all other feeling human beings, Sebastian and Kathryn strike a wager. It involves Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), a teen who has published a national magazine article trumpeting her virginity. Sebastian's mission is to seize that virtue or risk losing his classic car. If he wins, his next conquest will be his own step-sister.
If that all sounds considerably sleazier than the original DANGEROUS LIAISONS, that's only because it is. Writer/director Roger Kumble plays most of the film as though it's soft-core porn for teenyboppers, teasing with pseudo-incestuous fondling and money-shot close-ups of Gellar and Blair tongue kissing. To make matters even more unpleasant, Kumble even plays an interracial relationship for titillation value, and goes for cheap laughs by introducing a pointless subplot in which a stud athlete (Eric Mabius) is a closet homosexual, complete with gratuitous slurs. In a depressing case of lowest common denominator film-making, Kumble has appealed to his teen audience by reducing the themes of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" to "everyone has sex with everyone else."
In an even more depressing development, Kumble may actually have the _best_ grasp of the source material. Ryan Phillippe, in a valiant but grossly misguided effort to do some acting, spends virtually the entire film aping John Malkovich's performance in Stephen Frears' 1988 DANGEROUS LIAISONS. Every inflectionless line reading, every arched eybrow, every lascivious double-entendre is familiar, with no apparent adjustment for the fact that Sebastian is a contemporary teenager instead of an 18th century nobleman. Gellar is only a bit better in the lip-curling Glenn Close role, while Selma Blair plays Cecile not as simple and innocent, but with a fumbling idiocy that makes her every moment on screen unbearable. Only Reese Witherspoon brings a shred of dignity to the proceedings, continuing to show a wonderful presence for a young actress and an interest in finding something human in her character.
Unfortunately, that's an interest her director doesn't share. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that CRUEL INTENTIONS is just another in a long line of glossy high school audience flicks, another film with a mind-numbingly incessant underscore of shuffle-beats and pop songs, another vehicle for pretty girls and even prettier boys to pose for their fans. It is sad, however, that these filmmakers have to keep picking promising source material for their libretti, then demonstrating no concern for that material whatsoever. DANGEROUS LIAISONS was a tale of corruption beneath a courtly veneer; CRUEL INTENTIONS makes the shocking suggestion that adolescents can be petty, manipulative and obsessed with sex. It's a stupid and pandering film which will probably appeal to its audience perfectly, leaving the rest of us to sit back and wait for the inevitable "MOBY DICK, but with teenagers."
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 dubious liaisons: 2.
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