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Dangerous Liaisons
Nominated for seven Academy awards including Best Picture of 1988, Dangerous Liasions is a fascinating and emotionally charged costume drama about seduction, manipulation, lust, and sexual empowerment that fascinates from opening to closing credits thanks to a beautifully crafted screenplay, meticulously detailed direction, and some powerhouse performances.
The setting is 18th century France where the Marquis de Merteuil (Glenn Close) plots revenge against her ex-lover Valmont (John Malkovich), who has come to her because he supposedly wants to resume their relationship. Merteuil agrees to reunite with Valmont for an evening of passion if he will seduce her beautiful young niece (Uma Thurman) destroying her relationship with a handsome musician (Keanu Reeves) and produce evidence in writing that he has done the deed. Valmont agrees to do this despite the fact that he is in the middle of his own seduction of the very married Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), whose husband is away.
Though I refer to this film in the opening paragraph as a costume drama, peeling away all the costumes, the Elizabethan-styled dialogue and all the elegant trappings, what you have here is a good old fashioned soap opera, which began as a novel before becoming a stage play. We have an angry bitter woman plotting revenge on the man who wronged her and not caring a bit about all the other lives she ends up destroying in the process. We are given a clue to what a sexual deviant Valmont just by the fact that Valmont agrees to this sexual swordplay. It's confirmed for us when Valmont is observed writing a letter to one of the women he's seducing, using the backside of a naked woman as his desk.
We almost don't notice the simplicity of the story thanks to Christopher Hampton's Oscar-winning adaptation of his own play, rich with Shakespearean dialogue that is easily translated for those paying attention. This dialogue, where most characters rarely say what they actually mean, coupled with Stephen Frear's delicate direction where most of the emotion and power of the story comes through in looks and body language that supply what the screenplay does not.
It goes without saying that production values are without peer, including Oscar-winning art direction/set direction and costumes. Glenn Close's richly layered Merteuil earned her a lead Actress nomination and Pfeiffer's insecure Madame de Tourvel earned her a supporting actress nomination. For my money though, the acting honors here have to go to John Malkovoch, who has never been so smooth, slick, and sexy onscreen playing a guy devoid of a moral barometer oblivious of the bodies he leaves in his wake. I have never enjoyed Malkovich onscreen more and how he didn't get a nomination as well is a mystery. For those who like an old fashioned soap opera where just as many people get what's coming to them as the people who get hurt, have your fill here. The final five minutes of the film are spectacular. The story returned to the screen two years later as Valmont and was also re-thought in 1999 with teenage leads as Cruel Intentions.
Nominated for seven Academy awards including Best Picture of 1988, Dangerous Liasions is a fascinating and emotionally charged costume drama about seduction, manipulation, lust, and sexual empowerment that fascinates from opening to closing credits thanks to a beautifully crafted screenplay, meticulously detailed direction, and some powerhouse performances.
The setting is 18th century France where the Marquis de Merteuil (Glenn Close) plots revenge against her ex-lover Valmont (John Malkovich), who has come to her because he supposedly wants to resume their relationship. Merteuil agrees to reunite with Valmont for an evening of passion if he will seduce her beautiful young niece (Uma Thurman) destroying her relationship with a handsome musician (Keanu Reeves) and produce evidence in writing that he has done the deed. Valmont agrees to do this despite the fact that he is in the middle of his own seduction of the very married Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), whose husband is away.
Though I refer to this film in the opening paragraph as a costume drama, peeling away all the costumes, the Elizabethan-styled dialogue and all the elegant trappings, what you have here is a good old fashioned soap opera, which began as a novel before becoming a stage play. We have an angry bitter woman plotting revenge on the man who wronged her and not caring a bit about all the other lives she ends up destroying in the process. We are given a clue to what a sexual deviant Valmont just by the fact that Valmont agrees to this sexual swordplay. It's confirmed for us when Valmont is observed writing a letter to one of the women he's seducing, using the backside of a naked woman as his desk.
We almost don't notice the simplicity of the story thanks to Christopher Hampton's Oscar-winning adaptation of his own play, rich with Shakespearean dialogue that is easily translated for those paying attention. This dialogue, where most characters rarely say what they actually mean, coupled with Stephen Frear's delicate direction where most of the emotion and power of the story comes through in looks and body language that supply what the screenplay does not.
It goes without saying that production values are without peer, including Oscar-winning art direction/set direction and costumes. Glenn Close's richly layered Merteuil earned her a lead Actress nomination and Pfeiffer's insecure Madame de Tourvel earned her a supporting actress nomination. For my money though, the acting honors here have to go to John Malkovoch, who has never been so smooth, slick, and sexy onscreen playing a guy devoid of a moral barometer oblivious of the bodies he leaves in his wake. I have never enjoyed Malkovich onscreen more and how he didn't get a nomination as well is a mystery. For those who like an old fashioned soap opera where just as many people get what's coming to them as the people who get hurt, have your fill here. The final five minutes of the film are spectacular. The story returned to the screen two years later as Valmont and was also re-thought in 1999 with teenage leads as Cruel Intentions.