Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.
Dangerous Liaisons is a razor-sharp adaptation of Laclos's epistolary novel, elevated by a screenplay that crackles with wit, manipulation, and moral rot. Glenn Close and John Malkovich deliver career-defining performances — their battle of wills is mesmerizing, and Uma Thurman and Michelle Pfeiffer provide excellent counterbalance. The plotting is intricate and satisfying, each seduction layered with psychological complexity. The ending is genuinely devastating, delivering earned consequences with icy precision. Cinematography is handsome and period-appropriate but not especially inventive — Forman's Amadeus covers similar baroque-France visual territory more distinctively. Novelty is moderate: the source material is classic and the film executes it brilliantly, but it remains fundamentally a prestige literary adaptation rather than a singular cinematic vision.