The Rise of the "Adultager" (Cruel Intentions (DVD))

Member Name: ihatebroccoli

Product:	Cruel Intentions (DVD)
Date:	20/10/00 (306 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Acting, teenmovie stars, it is fantasically sinister and horrid, but you can't help liking it

Disadvantages: It's a *bit* unbelievable that they are still in high school!

Are they 17? Are they 27? Who can tell? In the age of teenagers increasingly being treated like adults in films, Cruel Intentions fits perfectly. Like all good remakes, it aims to offer something new, and that offering is youth. The appeal of the first American version (Dangerous Liaisons) is clear – the greed, the lust, the sinister acts are all there, but in this version, it is the fact that these characters are so young, which brings about an almost perverse feeling about the film. There are also the subjects of incest, cocaine use, teacher-pupil sexual relations, and high society games, which all make for a pretty disturbing view of teenage life, no matter how high up the social ladder it is.

True, the leads Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon have all been present in teen movies of the nineties, and are seen as teenage icons amongst many, but, to put them in such seemingly adult roles is almost sinister in itself. You might think I’m making too much of this, but in a way, it kind of disturbs me, seeing teenage characters involved in intrigues, sexual games, cocaine use and possible incest, all while they are apparently at one of the best schools in the country. Its high society smut, but at the same time, its disturbing teenage material. A film like American Pie, for example, totally different from Cruel Intentions, addresses the issue of teenage sex in a similarly adult way, but at the same time, portrays it (as most people will remember it) as a time of experimentation, embarrassment, and discovery.

Sarah Michelle “Buffy” Gellar is fantastically cunning and in control as Kathryn Merteuil an upper-class rich kid in Manhattan, and with whom her step brother Sebastian Valmont makes a pact – that if he seduces the virginal headmasters’ daughter Annette, he will get to sleep with Kathryn. Reese Witherspoon is the goody goody headmasters’ daughter (rather like the charact
er she played in Election, but somewhat more virtuous), and Ryan Phillippe plays the “player” Sebastian, who winds up seducing everything in a skirt. Selma Blair appears as the wonderfully innocent Cecille, playing the cello, and her mother is played by Christine Baranski (Maryann from the TV show Cybill starring Cybill Shepherd). Swoosie Kurtz appears as Dr Regina Greenbaum, and who was also present in Dangerous Liasons (1988). Dawson's Creek's Joshua Jackson also appears as Blaine Tuttle

Based on the original book Les Liasons Dangereuses by Choderlos De Laclos, Cruel Intentions was the most recent of four screen adaptations. In 1959, Roger Vadim’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses appeared, followed nearly thirty years later in 1988 by Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liasons starring Michelle Pfeiffer, John Malkovich, and Glenn Close (as well as our old teenage favourite, Keanu Reeves). Valmont revealed itself the very next year, directed by Milos Forman, and starring another teen movie actress Fairuza Balk as Cecile.

Like a modern morality play for the increasingly aging teens, it is hard to establish exactly which genre this film could be categorised as – it is definitely dark, scheming, and contains teenage characters. It’s not a teen movie as such, and is not specifically a “drama”, it is just spiteful and unpleasant, and sinister, but definitely watchable. Yet it is the typical teen movie theme in many respects. When Ryan Phillippe reads an article by Witherspoon saying she is a virgin and is waiting for the right person/ time, it is the typical conquest theme too – the guy has got to “deflower” the virgin girl, and win his prize (which in this case is to get to sleep with Kathryn).

It makes me feel a bit sick to think that these characters are so young, and the audience is viewing them as adults, making adult decisions, and discussing sex as if it was run of the mill stuff.
The original setting of France fits quite well into the large Manhattan apartments though, which look almost like the rooms of a Paris apartment – with their long lace curtain-edged window, looking out over busy streets, and the four poster bed in Kathryn’s room. Cruel Intentions was apparently shot over a six-week period in Los Angeles and New York City. The French look to the Kathryn’s apartment might perhaps be explained as the exterior scenes were shot outside a 100-year-old French chateau

The first time I saw this film, I was writing my thesis, and thought it might help to see it. I bought it on DVD thinking – hey, this is a teen movie of sorts, I should see this film, and even own it. I am still unsure as to whether I like this film, but it will remain in my collection as an example of the late-nineties’ inability to treat teenagers like teenagers in films. I do think the acting is realistic, and the fact that I seem to dislike the film so much, makes its impact all the more effective. It is a horrible tale, with horrible main characters (Kathryn and Sebastian).

Taglines include: “In The Game Of Seduction, There Is Only One Rule: Never Fall In Love”, and “What you can’t have, you can’t resist”. I think “If you’re filthy rich, you can do *anything* for a time” would be more fitting. A sequel for TV is also on the cards (Cruel Intentions II (2001))

The DVD is available in Widescreen, its features include:

- Filmographies
- US Theatrical Trailer
- Director/ Producer Commentary
- 5 Deleted Scenes
- 2 Music Videos (Marcy Playground, and Placebo)
- Behind-the-scenes Featurette

I won’t reveal the ending, but lets just say, it brings about the downfall of both Kathryn and Sebastian.

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