Roger Kumble
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Connections, in both directions
If Cruel Intentions and Brideshead Revisited were burned to ashes then laced with acid and smoked, you’d get the sensation of Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman follow-up, Saltburn.
Cruel Intentions, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Anna Karenina follow similar threads.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have made the leap to Cruel Intentions if I hadn’t heard Fennell cite the movie as a direct inspiration. The sex and desire in Saltburn definitely hit with the same immediate “Oh no they didn’t” impact that one got from Cruel Intentions.
“Saltburn” is indeed a wild ride that’s cut from the same incestual cloth as “Cruel Intentions” and the swagger of “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”
With its slick mix of Parasite stylings, elements of the Talented Mr Ripley and shades of Cruel Intentions, Emerald Fennell's blistering follow up to Promising Young Woman is one of the more electric releases in cinemas in 2023.
What she’s created is something like the bastard child of Cruel Intentions and The Talented Mr. Ripley…
Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Directed by Stephen Frears
influenced Cruel Intentions (1999)
Characters Plot
Glenn Close and John Malkovich made gender politics diabolical sport in "Dangerous Liaisons" as the two appealed to one another's self-loathing.
I knew Dangerous Liaisons (1988), starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, was really good, but I forgot how good until last night.
"Cruel Intentions" is literally "Dangerous Liaisons" transplanted to present-day Upper East Side Manhattan and featuring ruthless teenagers playing sexual power games instead of 18th Century French aristocrats.
"Cruel Intentions'' is a modern-day version of "Dangerous Liaisons,'' with rich kids in a prep school playing roles that were written for jaded French aristocrats in the wicked 1782 novel by Choderlos De Laclos.
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).
Now comes Cruel Intentions, inspired by Choderlos de Laclos's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (better known in this country as "Dangerous Liaisons").
Other movies have tried, but too often they end up like The Sweetest Thing, in which the script asked Christina Applegate and Cameron Diaz to dance for laughs by talking and acting like men.
For a while Hollywood has unsuccessfully tried to make a "guy" comedy with women (the justly-forgotten The Sweetest Thing, anyone?), but finally someone has gotten it right with this deceptively gentle-sounding title.
You think because I'm a movie star I don't have feelings," Goldie Hawn's character says in The First Wives Club.
Think of it as Whit Stillman's innocent "Metropolitan" as reinvented by a pervert with a bad attitude, to say nothing of heartburn.
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.
Clueless was a new take on Jane Austen's "Emma."
First there was Clueless (Jane Austen's "Emma"), then She's All That ("Pygmalion"), and now Cruel Intentions.
Having failed with the first movie’s Cruel Intentions -meets- Pride and Prejudice conceit due to a decidedly PG-13, Nicholas Sparks approach and a leaden script-by-committee, author of this boy band fan fiction tale Anna Todd must have seen her five-book franchise was heading in only “One Direction” – nowhere.
But the introduction of his character via a pre-divorce magazine spread opts for a grotesque prosthetic double chin, evoking the one Ryan Reynolds wears in "Just Friends" but worse.
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)
Directed by Brad Peyton
influenced by Furry Vengeance (2010)
Sean (Josh Hutcherson) still remembers the crazy journey he took with his dad in “Journey to the Center of the Earth” but pop is missing in action (it’s hard to say what Brendan Fraser had to do that was better but maybe he finally came to his senses in terms of paycheck roles after “Furry Vengeance”) leaving stepdad Hank (Dwayne Johnson) to struggle with the troubled teen, who really wants nothing to do with him.
Considering the fact that his filmography is studded with the jaw-dropping likes of "Monkeybone," "Inkheart," "Furry Vengeance" and "Crash," it is more than clear that this is a guy who is not exactly selective when it comes to picking scripts featuring implausible creatures roaming bout.
If Fraser has ever willingly turned down a film project before (particularly in the wake of 2010's assault against humanity " Furry Vengeance "), one can only shudder to imagine what it might have been.
Certainly, No Strings Attached is unusual within the current market in that it gives a female slant on the usual sex comedy fare, something that the failure of 2002's The Sweetest Thing seemed guaranteed to prevent from ever occurring again.
The film also stars Alison Brie (TV's 'Community,' 'Mad Men') as Joe's out-of-the-house sister and Eugene Cordero ("Furry Vengeance") as her oddball boyfriend.
In a variety of retellings most recently Stephen Frears's "Dangerous Liaisons" and Milos Forman's "Valmont" this 18th-century epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos De Laclos gaily shocks the choir, affronts the vicar and titillates all hedonists too lazy to awake on Sunday morn.
Rather, pair Valmont up with Patrice Leconte’s fantastic 1996 film Ridicule or even the fun modern American update Cruel Intentions .
Nerve feels like a cross between the Jackass series and movies, in which people who should know better do stupid things for the amusement of the viewing public; Hackers (1995), in which a group of teenagers get embroiled in a cyber-virus plot; and Cruel Intentions (1999), the awful remake of Dangerous Liaisons, in which teenagers screw each other over for fun (you could easily see shades of Wargames (1983) and the Brat Pack movies of the 1980s in the film too).
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026)
Directed by Jane Schoenbrun
influenced by Cruel Intentions (1999)
Music
…the most unexpected marriage of a Counting Crows song to cinematic material since “Cruel Intentions” — and during an especially gory killing spree…
Nina’s coolly psychotic demeanor brings Sarah Michelle Gellar in 1999’s Cruel Intentions to mind…
…couldn’t have more “just friends” energy if they were also watching the 2005 romantic comedy “Just Friends” on DVD…
That’s especially true once many of these animals get their Furry Vengeance on and decide to “squish” Mayor Jerry.
The diabolic behavior isn't far removed, in fact, from the revolting seductions in 1995's controversial Kids.
Fifty Shades Darker (2017)
Directed by James Foley
influenced by Cruel Intentions (1999), After We Collided (2020)
Characters
While Dornan (who here more resembles Ryan Phillipe in Cruel Intentions than an adult businessman) wrestles to overcome a character whose a cross between Patrick Bateman, Gordon Gecko and Dexter Morgan, Johnson brings plenty of chutzpah, backbone (and pertness) to what could have been a one-dimensional role.
After We Collided picks up a month after it was revealed that Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) only dated Tessa (Josephine Langford) as part of a bet and in that time things have gotten Darker… as in Fifty Shades Darker .
Ready or Not: Here I Come (2026)
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
influenced by Cruel Intentions (1999)
Characters
…playing a character that feels like a cocktail of Buffy Summers and toxic socialite Kathryn Merteuil from Cruel Intentions (1999).
Much like her iconic work in Cruel Intentions, Gellar injects a sharp, almost playful menace into her role…