Dangerous Liaisons

Adapted for stage and screen several times over the past century, French author Francois Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel Les Liasons Dangeureuses was the basis for this Academy Award-winning Stephen Frears film. The plot is motivated by a cruel wager between the beautiful but debauched Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) and her misogynistic former lover, the Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovitch). The Marquise challenges Valmont to seduce the virginal Cecile de Volanges (Uma Thurman) before the girl can be wed. Valmont offers a more difficult counter-challenge: He bets the Marquise that he will be able to bed the very moral and very married Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer). In the course of carrying out his plan, Valmont is stricken with a sudden case of honor and remorse, while the Marquise becomes all the more vicious.

AMG Review: In the 1980s, director Stephen Frears made such diverse films as My Beautiful Laundrette, Walter and Prick Up Your Ears, but it's safe to say that Dangerous Liaisons was his most ambitious achievement. Frears was working with his first large Hollywood budget; the results were both a critical and box-office success. Liaisons is based on an 18th-century novel by way of a Christopher Hampton play, and at least four movies have been made from the original story. In 1959, Roger Vadim produced Les Liaisons Dangereuses; a year after Frears' version, director Milos Forman made the uneven Valmont; and 1999 saw the a teenage update, Cruel Intentions. Of the four, Frears' is arguably the best; his deliberate, restrained direction is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's work in Barry Lyndon. His version isn't quite as much fun as Vadim's, but thanks the stellar performances of Glenn Close and John Malkovich, the movie has a fresh coat of pernicious complexity to it. Frears went on to capture more fiendish elements of human relationships with his next film, The Grifters.