The Weekly Movie Review

Alright before I start this review I want all of you to keep an open mind, because that's sure as hell what I did while watching this. It's one from the late 90's as it seemed to be a pretty mainstream hit, even though the majority of the audience of this film were just dough eyed girls who were just into whatever flavor of the month movie was out at the time, but I decided I'd dig deep and try to find a reason why this movie is worth watching. This is the Purple Beanie Movie Review of "Cruel Intentions".


















Starring Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Reese Witherspoon, "Cruel Intentions" is the film of a dysfunctional yet sexually tensioned step brother and sister (Phillippe and Gellar) who seemed to find no joy in this world other than causing others misery and getting what they want along the way. Now right there I'd say forget it, I'm not even going to bother but there was something about this movie that was really standing out to me, I'm not sure what it was at first but it wasn't until I recently watched did I realize it was the incredibly dark undertone of this movie that really makes it captivating to me. Well the step brother and sister are very used to a rich and posh lifestyle as it would seem that they basically have enough money to do whatever they want, the only thing that seems to bind them down is their reputations. Although Sarah Michelle Gellar's character Kathryn is a very vindictive and seducing character, the persona she puts on in front of the public is rather innocent and bright, not at all what her character truly is. As for Ryan Phillippe's character Sebastian, he seems to have a proud standing reputation of luring girls with false promises and sweet words he knows they want to hear, but even though he takes joy in fulfilling his own greedy and dirty desires, he begins to grow tired of sleeping with the same kind of girl over and over again. Enter Reese Witherspoons character Annette. Annette seems to be the purist of pure girls, she goes as far as to write an article in a magazine about why she wants to save sex until marriage, thus catching the eye of Sebastian. Annette is the daughter of the new headmaster of the prep school Kathryn and Sebastian attend as Sebastian sees his golden opportunity to make his reputation legendary but sleeping with the daughter of the head master and corrupt the holyer than holy Annette, and so a bet is placed between the two step siblings. If Sebastian fails, Kathryn gets his rather nice looking car, and if Sebastian wins and winds up sleeping with Annette, he gets to sleep with Kathryn (weird). Now there is an entire sub plot I'm leaving out involving Selma Blair's character and her music teacher, but honestly I don't think it serves really any significance in this review other than proving the fact that Kathryn is a bitch. Well Sebastian tries as hard as he can to seduce the virgin Annette, but she is more clever than she lets on as she is fully aware of his reputation and won't be swayed so easily. Seducing Annette becomes a quick obsession with Sebastian, as he begins to find himself falling in love with her. Soon enough however he actually does sleep with her, but by this time the bet doesn't even matter anymore. Rather Sebastian does this act out of love rather than greed and bragging rights. But as their relationship progresses, Sebastian of course has a cruel run in with his conscience and realizes he has to break up with her because obviously he can't continue a relationship that started because of a bet, that and Kathryn decided to be a bitch once more and threatened his reputation if he didn't do something about it. So Sebastian ended the relationship and of course put on a charade in front of Kathryn making it seem as though he didn't care about breaking up with Annette, only to have it thrown back at him as Kathryn makes it ubuntently clear that Sebastian is nothing more than a toy that would break up with the love of his life just because he didn't want to ruin his reputation. Well of course Sebastian apologizes to Annette by giving her his journal which revealed everything. The bet, who Kathryn really is, everything. After reading it, Annette forgives him and wants to be with him as she soon finds him in a fight in the middle of the road with Selma Blair's music teacher because he found out that Sebastian slept with Selma Blair's character as a part of Kathryn's plan to make her music teacher jealous. Well as they are fighting in the road, Annette comes up to try and stop them as Sebastian pushes her out of the way of an oncoming car and thus is struck by the car killing him, but before he dies he reveals to Annette that he loves her and that she loves him. In the end, Kathryn gets whats coming to her as Sebastian's journal if photocopied and spread around school, thus fucking her over and Annette continues her life a little bit wiser it would seem now. Alright now I get that the film sounds like just some 90's teen flick but honestly this movie was pretty gripping. Of course it had many dumb parts, but they were pretty tolerable in the long run. It had a perfect balance of comedy, sexuality, and darkness that you don't really get with many movies now a days. If you're tired of watching the same kind of movie day in and day out, I strongly recommend this movie to you, it's a unique story, and it will really make you realize that the purest evil of this world is by far corruption.

I give "Cruel Intentions" 9 Sarah Michelle Gellar making out with Selma Blairs out of 10