Why does “Les Liaisons Dangereuses”, an 18th-century tale of seduction, deception and betrayal, have such a mesmeric allure? Watch the latest update, on Netflix, for clues
now partners in crime, a privileged couple entrap vulnerable young women in a web of sexual exploitation and dependency that wrecks their victims’ lives. They do it for kicks, for revenge, out of hubris and malice—but also from a mutual fascination that has a twisted kinship with love. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s novel, “Les Liaisons Dangereuses”, was ain 1782: the book sold out in two weeks and 15 pirated editions appeared that year.
Merteuil and Valmont wield desire and deceit like duelling rapiers and, eventually, turn their weapons on each other. For the libertine misogynist Valmont, “to bring a woman to heel anything goes”, while the clever, bitter widow Merteuil seeks power as her charms fade. A woman alone, she writes, needs “a writer’s wit and the gifts of an actor”; mature women must be “capable of creating a life of their own when nature begins to desert them”.
The latest update, made for Netflix, comes from Rachel Suissa, a French actor-director. Her version follows the American movie of 1999, “Cruel Intentions” , in transplanting the salon backbiting of pre-revolutionary Paris to a high-school setting. A stylish lycée in Biarritz, on the French Atlantic coast, hosts a gang of Instagram-obsessed wannabes, presided over by Vanessa Merteuil, a former child star played by Ella Pellegrini.
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