Valmont

Rating:
Summary: MGM Home Video Does a Hachet Job On This Masterpiece
Review: Please, don't get me wrong--Valmont is one of my favorite films of all time. But I just discovered to my HORROR that it's true--MGM Home Entertainment has edited out a crucial and beautiful scene from this cinema masterpiece. I can't believe I missed it for the past two years, but the other reviewers are right. The lovely scene where Valmont buys a bouquet of flowers and brings them to Madame de Tourvel's apartment, and leaves them on her bed when she is not there, has been hacked out of this DVD! This scene is so beautiful and ingrained on my mind, that I must have mentally inserted it into my viewings for the past two years and consciously overlooked its absence. I can't tell you how betrayed and violated I feel, realizing that I have been watching the movie for two years without this important scene included. The scene is one of the most delicate and mysterious of the whole movie, showing a tender side of Valmont's character in such a subtle way. I am going to send my copy of the DVD to either MGM or Milos Forman and complain about this monstrosity. And I am going to buy a copy of the old VHS version that is intact and complete. If you care anything about the integrity of art and artistic accuracy, don't buy this DVD. You will be missing an imprtant part of the film. This DVD is tantamount to taking Monet's "Coquelicots", taking some shelack, and brushing over the woman's parasol. How does an outfit like MGM have the NERVE to commit such an atrocity on a masterpiece of art? They have no shame. I am totally appalled.

Rating:
Summary: Same old story line
Review: The story line to this movie and DL is the same as in the movie "Cruel Intentions", the teen flick version. Of course, what else is new. People are evil and we need never repent of it. That's just the way we humans are. There are only varying degrees of the evil we inflict on each other. We feel safe because we are not as evil these main characters who entertain us, and psychology gives us all the excuses we need to justify ourselves. Sorry to sound preachy, but I've lived too long to see anything called an original story line.

Rating:
Summary: Can't hold a candle to "Dangerous Liaisons"
Review: This movie does not pack a punch like its predecessor, "Dangerous Liaisons," whether you view it before or after. However unfair, one cannot but help to compare the two. Of course in a Milos Forman movie you'd expect to see lavish setting and locales and here he does not disappoint. Annette Bening as the Marquise de Merteuil, Fairuza Balk as Cecile and Henry Thomas as Danceny are quite good. However, I found Colin Firth as Valmont and Meg Tilly as Madame de Tourvel to be unsatisfactory, especially the latter. Firth's Valmont is played in a much too schoolboyish fashion--he is more like a harmless, charming rogue than the callous, manipulative cad he is supposed to evince. Tilly's Tourvel I had a BIG problem with as she was so obviously miscast. Most of the time she goes around with various degrees of mournful or stoic expressions fixed on her face. I also thought her character would have been drastically more convincing had she been made up to look like she did in "The Two Jakes"--in it she was a breathtaking, fresh-looking strawberry blond--because in this movie she is a plain-jane brunette (did the makeup and hair people ignore her, or what?). The even bigger letdown than Tilly was the watering down of the storyline in which the powers that be tacked on a palatable, humdrum ending.

Go and watch by far the better of the two films, "Dangerous Liaisons." Although at first glance Glenn Close as Merteiul and John Malkovich as Valmont may seem physically miscast, their superb, powerhouse performances truly make the characters their own and wholly convincing (unlike the not-as-skilled Tilly). Michelle Pfeiffer as Tourvel is a revelation: she is perfect as the spiritually tormented, tragic beauty. And unlike the namby-pamby ending of "Valmont," this version is not afraid to disturb the viewers with its no-holds-barred ending.

Rating:
Summary: Perfectly Cast
Review: This version of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" was short changed by Stephen Frears "Dangerous Liaisons" (A decent movie in its own right). Milos Forman's direction was wonderful. In addition to the direction, the great success of this film is in its casting. As good as John Malkovich, Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Uma Thurman are in Dangerous Liaisons, Colin Firth, Annette Bening (one her two greatest performances, along with "The Grifters", IMO), Meg Tily, and Fairuza Balk are far and away the better cast in the sense that they make the story feel far more authentic. "Dangerous Liaisons", on the other hand, feels fabricated and overblown (very hard to believe that Glenn Close is supposed to be in her mid 30's and that Uma Thurman is playing a 15 year old). "Valmont" gives you a much more accurate sense of how this plot would play out without the Hollywood fanfare.

Magnificent Film! I've been waiting for quite some time to finally see this one arrive on DVD! Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Best version of LIAISONS
Review: With the exception of the performance by the actress who played Cecile and the wonderful first seduction of her character by Colin Firth this movie was a great disappointment. It captured very little of the excitment of the book and the ending is ridiculous! Madame de Tourvel lives, Cecile's pregnancy by Valmont is welcomed by Madame de Rosemonde!??? etc.-- and they accuse American movie endings of being pat and happy.Indeed, the many movements away from the original plot undermine the spirit of Choderlos De Laclos deliciously decadent offering. Dangerous Liasions is a superior movie by far!