Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe in "Cruel Intentions."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a: Stars: Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar Director: Roger Kumble Rated: R, with strong sexual content and profanity Length: 97 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(March 5, 1999) -- Kathryn Merteuil (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her stepbrother, Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe), are Manhattan prep-school brats with too much money and raging hormones.

Attractive, but with the morality of slugs, they've slept their way through their circle of friends and classmates. More to the point, they've learned to wield sex as a weapon. They routinely seduce and destroy anyone they choose, for revenge or to combat boredom.

Their decadent lives are filled with Cruel Intentions.

Kathryn's boyfriend has just dumped her for the innocent Cecile (Selma Blair). So she entices Sebastian to try to turn Cecile into the class slut.

But Sebastian has come up with an even greater challenge. He's read a Seventeen magazine article in which a teenager named Annette (Reese Witherspoon) writes proudly of her plans to preserve her virginity for marriage. Sebastian can't resist such a target, especially when he finds out the girl is enrolled at their school.

The stage is set for sly seduction, snide wordplay and snobbish one-upmanship, along with the requisite lust and betrayal.

A lot of the teenage viewers drawn to Cruel Intentions may think they're watching a script left over from Beverly Hills, 90210, switched to a Manhattan ZIP code. But the plot's source is much older.

It's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the 1782 French novel of sexual manipulation that led to the 1988 films Dangerous Liaisons and Valmont (as in Sebastian Valmont).

Cruel Intentions offers a modern-day, American adolescent version of a classic tale -- following the lead of Clueless (which adapted Jane Austen's Emma) and Baz Luhrmann's hip, modern take on Romeo and Juliet.

Such modernizations are a mixed blessing. The original works are classics precisely because they remain applicable and enriching as is. To turn them into modern-day teen adventures suggests that today's young viewers can't handle or wouldn't be interested in the real deal.

On the other hand, it's fun to see how the characters and plot lines meld into another age. And the callous sexual behavior and cruelty in Cruel Intentions certainly is plausible.

The diabolic behavior isn't far removed, in fact, from the revolting seductions in 1995's controversial Kids. (But that film, at least, acknowledged the dangers of AIDS, something overlooked here.)

First-time director Roger Kumble gives Cruel Intentions a darkly glossy, upscale look, but he has mixed results with his young cast.

Phillippe (of 54) is coldly handsome and conniving as Sebastian, but still touching in his inevitable downfall. It's the performance of the film.

Gellar (TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer), who hasn't had much luck previously on the big screen, is surprisingly effective as his co-conspirator. Witherspoon has her moments as the virginal Annette, though she's not always convincing.

Least successful is Blair as Cecile. Clumsy and unrestrained, she acts like she's been misinformed: She thinks she's in a comedy.

As you'd expect, Cruel Intentions is loaded with all sorts of sexual references. Though not much skin is actually shown, it's still the sort of adolescent movie that would make parents squirm if they knew what their teenage kids were watching.

So, of course, the teens will probably love it.