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| Dangerous Liaisons |
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  (8/10)
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Runtime: 119 |
| Public Rating: 8.07 (15 votes) |
Director: Stephen Frears |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama/Romance |
Year: 1988 |
| Writer(s): Chordelos de Laclos (novel), Christopher Hampton |
| Reviewed by: Arturo García Lasca |
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When I first saw Cruel Intentions on 1999, I never knew a film so modern-looking was based on an 18th century novel. It was about a year later when I got to watch "Dangerous Liaisons" for the first time, and I realized that "Cruel" was just a modern adaptation of the film, but the film that looked more like the novel was this one. Even though it wasn't exactly as the book says, that's ok by me because if you don't change some things then it might not work in a movie. The Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) calls her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) and tells him she needs a favor. Merteuil's ex-husband is going to marry a nice young girl, Cécile de Volanges (Uma Thurman), Merteuil wants Valmot to use his charm to seduce the young Cecile and be the first one to make love to her, that way when Merteuil's husband marries Cecile he'll be quite surprised. Merteuil tells Valmont if he gets her a written proof that he had Cecile, she'll give him one last night with her as a reward; she doesn't think Valmot can do it, but he takes the offer anyways. Valmot finds it rather easy to seduce the young Cecile, but at the same time there is another story going on, Valmos is falling for a beautiful, religious lady, Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), and he seduces her too. Her triumph over Cecile was easy, but when he talks to Merteuil he realizes that falling in love the way he was doing with Tourvel would ruin his reputation; after his conversations with Merteuil he decides to break up with Tourvel, even though he still loves her. Another subplot is the story about Chevalier Danceny (Keanu Reeves), who's Cecile's music teacher, but is also in love with her; once he finds out Valmot has seduces Cecile, he challenges him to a duel. This movie is pretty good. I disliked a bit the fact that I had seen Cruel Intentons before, so I had an idea of what was going to happen next. The ending was pretty good, was a bit different than "Cruel"'s one. The casting in my opinion was pretty good; many people say Malkovich doesn't have the charm that his character is supossed to have, but I think his performance was enough to make it more than just believable; Glenn Close was perfect for the role of evil Marquise de Merteuil, I really liked her. I disliked the fact that Pfeiffer wouldn't stop crying in the whole movie, but her performance was good anyways. Keanu and Uma, who were still unknown actors back in 1988, were pretty much the same as they are now. I reckon that once you've seen Cruel Intentions, or 1989's "Valmot" (also based on the same novel) you wont enjoy this film so much, but if you haven't seen any of the above please watch Dangerous Liaisons before any of them, it's a good film. There is also a scene where Malkovich says "It's beyond my control" that was quite funny, you'll see, just rent the film or something, it's worth watching.
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