Cruel Intentions

Cruel Intentions

D: Roger Kumble (1999); with Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, Christine Baranski, Joshua Jackson, Louise Fletcher, Swoosie Kurtz, Selma Blair.

I'm not sure I would have understood Dangerous Liaisons when I was a teenager. Fortunately for teenagers today, we have Cruel Intentions. After I read the viewers' comments on various Web sites, it became readily apparent that many people enjoyed this movie more than I did. It's also apparent that many people who wrote the comments are young teenagers, who think Phillippe is a fabulous actor. I am not among that group either. Phillippe is pretty. That is the nicest thing I can say. The film seems so amateurish, and it is a shame to waste such a great story on such a minimally talented cast. It comes across with made-for-TV acting quality that can't begin to grasp the nuances of the story. Phillippe's real-life wife (then-girlfriend) Witherspoon is somewhat adequate as Annette, the daughter of the school's new headmaster. The reasonably respectable Gellar tries her hardest to be wicked as Kathryn but is a little out of her league on the big screen. Blair as Cecile Caldwell is dreadful. As Cecile's mother, Baranski is her usual snippy self, and Kurtz is a surprise, since she played Cecile's mother in Dangerous Liaisons. Though with nice production values, Cruel Intentions still falls into the Heathers and The Craft category of films -- perfectly geared toward their not-very-discriminating audiences who are blinded by their high style. Not that high style is meaningless; it just begs for some content to back it up. But as I said, I probably would have loved this when I was a teenager, since it was set in a milieu I understood: high school. A glamorous high school, to be sure, swank and private, but still loaded with the deadly vipers and demons that infest every high school -- and it would have been more fun to attend, just to watch the manipulations of this clique. This is the access offered by the movie to all teenagers, and in that respect, it succeeds very well.