Verdict
Summary
Valmont from director Milos Forman is well mounted, but overlong at 137 minutes, and it lacks the bite and stylish pizzazz of Dangerous Liaisons. It’s still a worthy film worth discovering with good performances, but it’s clearly the inferior film.
Plot:
A playful bargain between a playboy and a vixen ultimately destroys their lives.
Review:
The widow Madam de Merteuil (Annette Bening) and her friend, the renowned playboy Valmont (Colin Firth), are only excited by the prospect of sexual conquests and instant gratification, even if it means stirring the pot of cruelty in their bored bellies. Merteuil’s younger cousin, the innocent Cecile (Fairuza Balk), is of marrying age, and her marriage is arranged with one of Merteuil’s lovers (played by Jeffrey Jones) who has a great standing in society, but Merteuil makes a bargain with Valmont: If he can deflower Cecile before her marriage, Merteuil will offer Valmont her own body, and if he fails he must basically become a monk. The conquest will be easy for him because Cecile is so innocent and easy to manipulate, but that’s not the point: When he comes to claim his prize, Merteuil mocks him, which derails his expectations and he becomes erratic and gets himself in major trouble with Cecile’s young would-be suitor (played by Henry Thomas) who becomes enraged and jealous and challenges Valmont to a duel. With all these complications swirling around, hearts will be broken, relationships will be destroyed, and lives will be lost.
Based on “Les Liasons Dangereuses” by Choderlos de Laclos, which has been adapted to film a number of times, but most notably with Valmont and Dangerous Liaisons, which was released the year before (and later as Cruel Intentions), this adaptation was overshadowed by its immediate predecessor which had major star power. Valmont from director Milos Forman is well mounted, but overlong at 137 minutes, and it lacks the bite and stylish pizzazz of the previous version. It’s still a worthy film worth discovering with good performances, but it’s clearly the inferior film. Bening at this stage in her career didn’t quite have the gravitas she would later develop as an actress, and Firth is a little too pretty and shallow to fully embody the world-weary and bored Valmont.
Kino Lorber has just released Valmont onto Blu-ray for the very first time, and as the film has until now languished on out of date formats, fans and the curious can finally rediscover the film in a beautiful widescreen (2:35:1) format. There’s an audio commentary by a film historian, plus a bonus feature with Forman on making the film, as well as the trailer.
