Dangerous Liaisons

Dangerous Liaisons began its life early back in 1782 when the French novel, Les liaisons dangereuses, was released written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Considered a book ahead of its time tackling amoral protagonists as well as slamming the corrupted nature of the French aristocratic system, the novel was strong enough to last in people’s memory despite the controversial topic, so much so that it has been adapted into various different medias throughout the years including several TV and radio dramas, stage-shows and plays, operas and ballets, other books, and various movies (some even taking the story from the perspective of a different country’s social views). The movie of topic today is arguably the most famous film version of the story, that being the 1988 Warner Bros. film starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich. In pre-revolution Paris, Marguise de Merteuil (played by Glenn Close) wishes to cause chaos within her social circle by ruining Cécile de Volanges (played by Uma Thurman), the fiancé of her ex-lover who recently and abruptly ended their relationship . To do this, she dares her similarly unprincipled and previous ex-lover, Vicomte de Valmont (played by John Malkovich) to assist by corrupting the purity of Cécile (especially because she recently returned from being raised in a covenant), but he has his own plans of seducing the religiously devout and chaste Madame de Tourvel (played by Michelle Pfeiffer). With the promise of bedding him herself if he manages to seduce Tourvel, Valmont sets out on his goal to spread misery and unrest, with the consequences undoubtedly being set to spill out in a way that will impact everyone associated with it. Considering how overly complicated, confusing and near unfollowable this plot-synopsis is, it paints a pretty good picture of the faults with this movie and why it was a film that did more favorably within the critical and awards space than the general public (it had a modest box office, but not one that proved to be a cult favorite amongst impressionable audiences). While definitely not awful, it feels like it’s more occupied with being packed with dialogue and plot instead of constructing something that works on a connectable level for its audience.

Since the story has lasted over two centuries, it must have some grab with people and considering how it was very well received at the Academy Awards (getting seven nominations and even winning three for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and even Best Adapted Screenplay), it is doing something right in that regard. However, the film might have been subtly tricking its audience into thinking its more complex than it actually is. The film is very obviously a book story and a playwright story, in that there’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of exposition through said dialogue. While this works fine in a novel when that’s the only way of conveying information, and in a play as it has its own unique style of connecting with its audience, a movie needs more visual storytelling and less wordy dialogue in order to connect with audiences properly. The screenplay for this film by Christopher Hampton (who actually wrote the stage play) is pretty messy, with dialogue that doesn’t inform much about any character or motivation as its either too quickly explained or too generic in nature to be intriguing and a story that clearly shows its age as a lot of these topics aren’t as raunchy or shocking in the current era, so it can’t rely on the shock tactics anymore. The movie really seems to underestimate the power of complexity through simplicity; most complex stories are also home to elements of simplicity in order for people to be emotionally engaged as its something recognizable to latch onto. Nobody can relate to anything within this story so that’s already a problem, no character’s motivation feels warranted as its established before the movie begins, and while the concept of creating a story with amoral leads is a nice change of pace in its own right, if the set-up is not strong enough, it becomes nearly impossible to care if anything succeeds as the audience is stuck following awful people. In terms of how the movie paces out this pretty blanket story and by extension, the overall direction by Stephen Frears, its honestly fine for what it is, but scenes start to feel incredibly similar and repetitive as it goes on, to the point that come the film’s conclusion its feel very confusing as to what was even accomplished. What should come off like a Shakespearean drama with imperfect characters instead feels like an old-fashioned smut novel with less focus than necessary.

The characters are very similar in nature to the story, in that they talk a lot about stuff that should be important, but it just leaves them feeling like blank shells spouting expositional lines that don’t connect to anything. It’s already incredibly strange to recreate a French story with the proper French names in a proper French aristocratic setting, yet featuring no French people whatsoever in the lead roles, but the convoluted nature of the plot leaves most of these roles feeling pretty flat. The leads being these unforgiving awful people works within the realms of what the story is trying to tell, but both are handled pretty poorly. On the one hand, John Malkovich is way too obviously evil to make this story work. When the role requires someone who can properly portray this sense of powerful attraction through words as oppose to physical beauty, don’t pick the man who always looks like a stalker predator every single time he looks at Michelle Pfeiffer. It never feels genuine and its very clear no sane woman would ever, power or not, be interested in him. On the other side of that, Glenn Close actually does a pretty good job at playing the deceiver and gets some pretty good acting moments occasionally, but she’s barely in the movie in comparison to Malkovich and her plan really doesn’t contribute to anything by the film’s end. People like Pfeiffer and Thurman are at least given this sense of set-up, the audience will genuinely feel bad for them, and despite not being able to offer much, the acting from them is pretty good.  In terms of the acting, everybody is mostly fine and does a good job for this type of material (outside of Malkovich’s typical snide performance and an incredibly short but none the less painfully done Keanu Reeves performance), but they just needed more intrigue within their roles to make them feel memorable and none of these characters are memorable in the least.

At the very least, this movie does know to portray this environment and this world in the appropriately ritzy and flashy standard that you’d expect of this kind of story. The production design by Stuart Craig and the costume design James Acheson is at least fitting for the film and does feel like it has effort into it, but its hard to say its that memorable and that more than likely comes from how its filmed.  For a movie that could show off the beautiful French buildings of old, a lot of the cinematography by Philippe Rousselot doesn’t do a very impressive job showing it off. Its mostly restricted to medium shots of establishing the location and a lot of the close-ups for the dialogue sections. In moments that can be effective, but it leaves the location feeling cramped, washed out and not that interesting to look at. Every building starts to look the same and there’s no moments that really shows them off in an impressive light, so it leaves the movie feel pretty weak in visuals. The music by George Fenton is also pretty underwhelming; nothing awful or bad, but nothing that stand-out or memorable. It definitely feels like this movie was banking on the strengths of the book and even to some level, the strengths of the stage play to make this movie work, but those art forms are incredibly different from a movie and different approaches need to be taken to make it work. The writing needs to be far less wordy and feel more natural, the characters need more subtle nuances and clear motivations, the plot needs to be better pieced together and not as random, and the visuals need to be displayed on a cinematic level and not in a way that shows off nothing.

In terms of a basic aristocratic story with a fancier look and actors that are able to look the part fine enough, this movie is perfectly harmless. It’s a very good deceiver at feeling like its this complex story with many nuances and twists and turns, when it actuality it has very little characterization, very little plot motivation and very little intrigue. On a surface level, most of these criticism won’t be the same for everybody and those people will arguably like the movie it pretends its telling as oppose to what it could be. The acting is mostly fine and even most of these flaws won’t be movie-destroying for most people, but its very clear that anyone could just read a Shakespearean play and get far more out of a story like this. Decide for yourself if this is a movie for you and continue questioning how anybody would find John Malkovich ‘’irresistible’’.