| Cruel Intentions | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Roger Kumble |
| Screenplay by | Roger Kumble |
| Based on | Les Liaisons dangereuses byPierre Choderlos de Laclos |
| Produced by | Neal H. Moritz |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Theo van de Sande |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | Edward Shearmur |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release date |
|
Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10.5 million[1] |
| Box office | $75.9 million[1] |
Cruel Intentions is a 1999 Americanteenromanticdrama film written and directed byRoger Kumble, and starringRyan Phillippe,Sarah Michelle Gellar,Reese Witherspoon, andSelma Blair. The film, set in New York City among rich high schoolers, is a modern retelling ofPierre Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novelLes Liaisons dangereuses.[2]
Initially a smaller-budgetindependent film, it was picked up byColumbia Pictures and widely released on March 5, 1999. Despite mixed critical reviews, the performances of Gellar, Philippe, and Witherspoon were praised and the film grossed $76 million worldwide. Since its release, the film has become regarded as acult classic.[3][4]
Its box office success spawned amedia franchise with aprequel in 2000 and asequel in 2004, as well as ajukebox musical in 2015 and a2024 television series.
In New York City, wealthy teenager Sebastian Valmont regularly manipulates and seduces women, but seeks someone who poses a challenge to his charm. He settles on Annette Hargrove—the daughter of his new school headmaster—who is staunchly opposed to sex before falling in love. Sebastian and his equally manipulative stepsister, the intelligent and popularKathryn Merteuil, agree to a bet: if Sebastian fails to seduce Annette, then Kathryn gets his vintageJaguar XK140; if he wins, Kathryn will finally have sex with him. Kathryn tries to recruit Sebastian into her own scheme to take revenge on her ex-boyfriend Court Reynolds, who left her because of her promiscuity and began dating the naive and innocent Cecile Caldwell.
Sebastian's initial efforts to seduce Annette fail as she has been informed of his reputation. He suspects Annette's friend Greg, a closeted homosexual, of being responsible and blackmails him into convincing Annette of his good nature. Sebastian also learns that Cecile's mother warned Annette and agrees to corrupt Cecile as revenge. Kathryn notices romantic tension between Cecile and her young music teacher Ronald Clifford and reveals this to Cecile's mother, who fires Ronald. Sebastian and Kathryn convince Ronald to fight for Cecile by writing her a love letter which Sebastian uses to lure Cecile to his bedroom, where he blackmails her into receiving oral sex from him. The next day, Kathryn advises Cecile to have sex with Sebastian and be as promiscuous as possible so she can please Ronald.
Spending time with Annette, Sebastian develops genuine feelings for her, attracted to her honesty and ability to make the normally stoic Sebastian laugh. He kisses Annette but she resists because she also has feelings for him and fears she cannot restrain herself around him. Sebastian calls her a hypocrite for rejecting the opportunity for true love and she finally relents and begins undressing, but Sebastian, confused about his own feelings, declines to have sex with her. Annette leaves the following day, but Sebastian finds her, professes his feelings, and they have sex.
A jealous Kathryn tries to seduce Sebastian but is frustrated that her hold over him has been broken by his feelings for Annette, and she convinces him that he cannot change his true nature. Sebastian plans to tell Annette the truth about the bet but Kathryn warns him that he will only destroy both his and Annette's reputations. He devastates Annette by lying that he only wanted her for sex and feels nothing for her. Sebastian tells Kathryn that he has broken up with Annette, and, having won the bet, wants his reward, but she dismisses him. Kathryn reveals that he was the true target of her scheme and that she manipulated him into feeling shame over his love for Annette for her own amusement.
Sebastian tries to contact Annette to confess the truth and beg for a second chance, but she refuses to see him. He gives her his journal, in which he has detailed Kathryn's manipulative schemes, their bet, and his true feelings for Annette. Seeking revenge, Kathryn calls Ronald, claiming that Sebastian hurt her and slept with Cecile. Ronald violently confronts Sebastian, and the ensuing fight migrates to the middle of the street. Annette tries to intervene but is thrown into traffic and Sebastian is fatally wounded pushing her to safety. Sebastian and Annette confess their love for each other before he dies.
At Sebastian's funeral, Kathryn, unmoved by Sebastian's death, begins to deliver a eulogy, but people leave before she can finish. Kathryn rushes outside to find Cecile handing out copies of Sebastian's journal, titledCruel Intentions. As the details of her manipulations, promiscuity, and drug abuse are made public, Kathryn weeps as her reputation and good-girl persona are destroyed. Annette drives down a highway in Sebastian's car while wearing his sunglasses and with his journal at her side, recalling their fondest moments together.
One of the filming locations wasOld Westbury Gardens inNassau County, New York, as well as theHarry F. Sinclair House in New York City.[5] In a 2016 interview, Sarah Michelle Gellar revealed that the original title of the movie was "Cruel Inventions".[6]
OnRotten Tomatoes,Cruel Intentions has an approval score of 54% based on 119 reviews, with an average rating of 5.20/10. The site's critics consensus states: "This darkly comic drama and its attractive young cast are easy on the eyes, but uneven performances and an uninspired script conspire to foilCruel Intentions."[7]Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[8] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.[9]
Charles Taylor ofSalon.com described the film as "the dirtiest-minded American movie in recent memory – and an honestly corrupt entertaining picture is never anything to sneeze at".[10]Stephen Holden ofThe New York Times wrote: "You have the queasy sense that the whole thing is just an elaborate stunt and, in this case, an exploitative one."[11]Roger Ebert ofThe Chicago Sun-Times praisedCruel Intentions and gave the film three out of four stars in his review, stating that it was "smart and merciless in the tradition of the original story".[12]
Cruel Intentions was a commercial success, grossing $13,020,565 in its opening weekend, ranking No. 2 behindAnalyze This; released in 2,312 theaters, the movie raked in $76.3 worldwide against a $10.5 million budget.[1][13]
| Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blockbuster Entertainment Awards[14] | Favorite Supporting Actress – Drama/Romance | Reese Witherspoon | Won |
| Csapnivalo Awards | Best Movie | Nominated | |
| Best Teen Movie | Nominated | ||
| Best Movie Soundtrack | Nominated | ||
| Best Actress in a Leading Role | Sarah Michelle Gellar | Nominated | |
| Best Original Score | Edward Shearmur | Won | |
| Golden Trailer Awards[15] | Trashiest Trailer | Won | |
| MTV Movie Awards[16] | Best Male Performance | Ryan Phillippe | Nominated |
| Best Female Performance | Sarah Michelle Gellar | Won | |
| Best Breakthrough Female Performance | Selma Blair | Nominated | |
| Best Villain | Sarah Michelle Gellar | Nominated | |
| Best Kiss | Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair | Won | |
| Stinkers Bad Movie Awards | Worst Remake | Nominated | |
| Teen Choice Awards[17] | Choice Drama Movie | Won | |
| Choice Movie Actor | Ryan Phillippe | Nominated | |
| Choice Movie Actress | Reese Witherspoon | Nominated | |
| Choice Movie Sleazebag | Sarah Michelle Gellar | Won | |
| Ryan Phillippe | Nominated | ||
| Choice Movie Hissy Fit | Nominated | ||
| Choice Sexiest Love Scene | Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon | Nominated | |
| Choice Movie Soundtrack | Cruel Intentions | Nominated | |
| Vega Digital Awards | Social Campaigns | Won | |
TheCruel Intentions soundtrack is a compilation soundtrack released on March 9, 1999, byArista/Virgin Records. It reached number 60 on the Billboard chart.[18] The lead track for the film was "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by rock bandThe Verve.
Cruel Intentions 2 was releaseddirect-to-video in 2001, written and directed byRoger Kumble, assembled from three episodes filmed forManchester Prep, aprequel series scrapped byFox. The story features younger versions of Sebastian Valmont andKathryn Merteuil played byRobin Dunne andAmy Adams, respectively.
Cruel Intentions 3 followed in 2004, directed byScott Ziehl, starringKerr Smith andKristina Anapau, as Cassidy Merteuil, cousin to Kathryn.
None of the cast from the original appeared in the sequels.
NBC picked up a televisionpilot for a continuation of the film's storyline in October 2015. The pilot was set seventeen years after the events of the film and sees Bash Casey, son of Sebastian Valmont and Annette Hargrove, discover his late father's journal. Upon discovering this he is thrown into a world of lies, sex, and power. The potential series was to have Kathryn Merteuil, Bash's step-aunt, attempt to gain power of Valmont International.[19]
In February 2016,Taylor John Smith andSamantha Logan were cast, with Smith playing the male lead role of Bash Casey, Sebastian Valmont and Annette Hargrove's son.[20] Gellar reached a deal with producers to reprise her role as the female lead, Kathryn Merteuil.[21] In March,Kate Levering was cast to replace Witherspoon for the role of Annette Hargrove.[22]
Several months later, on October 31, NBC passed on the project and the series did not go forward.[23]
In October 2021, a television seriesreboot ofCruel Intentions was in development for IMDb TV (nowAmazon Freevee).[24][25][26] In April 2023, the reboot was given a series order.[27] It premiered on Amazon Prime Video on November 21, 2024.
A 1990sjukebox musical by Kumble, Rosin, and Ross, was first staged in 2015. After two runs in Los Angeles and a pop-up engagement in New York,Cruel Intentions: The '90s Musical made itsOff-Broadway debut at the Greenwich Village nightclubLe Poisson Rouge in November 2017 and ran through April 2018. Set to pop and rockhits of the 1990s and songs from the film's soundtrack, the plot follows the manipulations of Sebastian Valmont and Kathryn Merteuil, out to destroy anyone who gets in their way.[28]
| International | |
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| National | |
