Cruel Intentions (DiVX Movie Review)

This movie has two facts going for it. No matter how good or how bad you'll judge it, after watching it, the truth is that you previously know that #1) Sarah Michelle Gellar is in for a not-Buffy-at-all fun; and #2) Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair are doing the most erotic lesbian french kiss, ever.

You might also know that "Cruel Intentions" strongly suggests itself as a 1999's version of a 1900's book - "Les liaisons dangereuses", by Choderlos de Laclos, already (and assumedly) adapted to Cinema in "Dangerous Liaisons".

"Cruel Intentions" is all about corruption and sex. Naughty! Doing it a la 1999 NY way is not much different from 1900's a la française...

In "Cruel Intentions" you have Sebastian (Ryan Phillipe) and Kathryn (Sarah Gellar), both teenagers, both rich - step-brother and step-sister - both playing very-hard-to-believe games of seduction with fellow scholars.

Sebastian "hunts" virgin girls, "offers them the world" and, after achieving intercourse, dumps them. This high value for virginity is a bit démodé, but then again, this was inspired in a 100 years old script, and even if it had not been, there is people writing about the very new subject of "life without sex, even after marriage"...

Kathryn is on a "revenge against virgins" mission, as she feels that every man that she gets, shortly loses interest on her, on behalf of younger flesh. So, she pushes Sebastian to a bet where he has to deflower Annette (Resse Witherspoon), the new headmaster's daughter, or lose his 1956 Jaguar (which looks likes a Porsche...).

The forth most important person on the movie is Selma Blair, playing the role of Cecile, an over-protected rich girl, with no sex experience and naive to the extreme...

So, Cecile is an easy target for Sebastian, but he will accept the "challenge" because of another revenge Gellar is doing against a former lover, who now teaches violoncello to the girl.

The Gellar-Blair relation is a "Cruel Intention"'s strong point that should have been better used. The world famous lesbian kiss, happens at Central Park, New York, when Kathryn is to teach Cecile how to french kiss - "put your tongue inside my mouth".

If the movie had casted Sarah Gellar as a formidable lesbian lover, who would fight for Witherspoon's heart against Ryan Phillipe, then, not only the XVIII century link would be broken, but a stronger and (more) unusual erotic ambiance would arise.

"Cruel Intentions" spends most of the time showing Sebastian trying to seduce Annette. The viewer's opinion of Sebastian evolves from an exciting he-is-so-envyingly-cool to a boring he-is-stressed-out status.

Kathryn's attitudes are quite naughty, but you never get to "hate" her. This is an obvious movie flaw, as the script tries hard to build a finale where the Buffy girl will clearly be shown as terrible coke-sniffing bitch (!), and yet, such mask just doesn't fit.

As for Sebastian, the finale works better. As always, I am not a spoiler, so I won't be explicit about what happens, but I must write that there were better choices, a la Brian dePalma :).

This is an average movie, with plenty of extremely unusual clips that, somehow, make it a rare finding. I classify it as mandatory for Sarah Gellar / Selma Blair aficionados.

My DiVX version of the R1 DVD movie is one of the best DiVX files I have ever seen, showing very few imperfections.