Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble, 1999): A sinister teenage drama drowned in a loved up, yet unconvent

A typical 90s teenage drama follows the same structure: boy falls in love with girl; boy loses girl because of some little rat; boy gets girl back and they live happily ever after. On the contrary, this film is different. The film is based off of 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos in the late 1700s, but the disparity is they are wealthy teenagers attending high school. The divergence between this text and other 90s texts is that this text goes against the cliche narrative, yes it has the conventional characters as per, but the little jerks that are made throughout keeps the spectator from making the film more background noise than anything.

The character Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is our cliche bitch character that every woman has in her subconscious. Us women may want to be like her, yet we still have some morality in us to make sure that we don't appoint to be her. Yet we also want divuldge in the character of Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon) whom is the virgin sweetheart, that snags the attention of Kathryn's step-brother, Sebastian (Ryan Phillipe) who's the American 90s equivalent of a 'fuck boy' yet loses his control when he meets Annette. The characters all contrast each other, like the binary opposition between good and evil, and Sebastian is the middle man, swaying one way to the other, first being consumed by pure evil, and then moving away, as if Annette is his guardian angel. The death of Sebastian was not one I was expecting, it most definitely caught my diligence, that's what made it different to the other teenage dramas, there isn't a "happy ending". sure, Kathryn gets what she truly deserves, and maybe all of her dirty secrets are out, but it is not happy, the couple that we want to be together, can't be together.

Visuals and mise-en-scene help create the characters too, most importantly, their clothing and colour palette. In regards to Kathryn, she wears dark clothing, with dark makeup, and she is only seen in dark rooms or immersed in shadows, which empowers how dark and sinister she truly is. Not Annette is the juxtaposition of Kathryn, wearing white or pale colours, always in a bright location, and majority of the time she is smiling. The contrast between the two characters, yet again, emphasise the difference between the two. I do have quite a fondness towards 90s movies, with their music, pop culture and fashion, but this one has to be my new favourite.

#review #filmreview #CruelIntentions #1999 #RogerKumble #ResseWitherspoon #SarahMichelleGellar #RyanPhillipe #film