• Transcends (that word choice may be an overstatement) beyond guilty pleasure mainly because of Kumble’s writing—it’s such a deliciously wicked—Machiavellian– adaptation of the 18th century book by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and excellent (superior to this film) 1988 film by Stephen Frears
  • The debt owed to the Frears film is clear—we have the casting of Swoosie Kurtz (the psychiatrist in the uproarious opening) – clearly the name is just a quick synonym search
  • The houses and opulent settings these live in could easily be from Dangerous Liaisons or Marie Antoinette or Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech
  • 97 minutes- it snaps along which compliments the film for the most part until the last 15 minutes when the whirlwind downfall death trajectory is just rush—really weak
  • I think it’s a close cousin to the string of teen movie Shakespeare adaptations of the 1990’s from Clueless to 10 Things I Hate About You– modern setting updating from rich source material- great move
  • A number of attention-grabbing/seeking sexual scenes like the infamous lesbian kiss, the “down boy” scene with Sarah Michelle Geller—the casting of Joshua Jackson
  • The soundtrack is great from “Bitter Sweet Symphony” at the end—the Counting Crows—the Fatboy Slim “Praise You”—some of the best music of the time
  • The casting of Christine Baranski is inspired- such a perfect evil rich woman and plays this up in everything out there it seems including 1990’s Reversal of Fortune  
  • The film is far from perfect—didn’t get good reviews and some of it is for good reason. It does feel like kids (who are not nearly as talented as the actors in Dangerous Liaisons) playing grownup in scenes. I do think Sarah Michelle Geller is very good as the villainous puppet master
  • Recommend- barely not near the top 20 of 1999