150 Word Review: 'Dangerous Liaisons' (1988)

Les immoralistes

Photo: Warner Bros.

The central premise of the gorgeous 18th-century costume drama Dangerous Liaisons is that the rich are bored, and Glenn Close’s Marquise de Merteuil and John Malkovich’s Vicomte de Valmont, two powdered French aristocrats, are especially bored. They’re a pair of snakes who take pleasure in sexually terrorizing morally uptight friends and strangers in Parisian sitting rooms and country gardens.

Stephen Frears directs this adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses with entertaining ruthlessness. He pours his American stars into resplendent period costumes and lets them whisper toxic nothings without French accents.

Michelle Pfeiffer and celebrity babies Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves all tremble with desire. But this is Close and Malkovich at their sexiest and cruelest. Both are mesmerizing, seducing for amusement, spreading lies with every kiss, and later, while lounging, laughing at all the suffering they cause. Secret letters are folded, unfolded, and re-folded.

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