Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Pretty Persuasion (2005)

This is topic Pretty Persuasion (2005) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 10-09-2005, 02:16 AM:

The dark teen girl comedy genre has treaded lightly in its day... Producing major budget releases only every five years or so, each one seemingly a portrait of girl angst in America around its release date. Pretty Persuasion follows all the motions in setting up an evil girl-centric high school world where every boy or man in orbit follows these girls with percision and wit. For most of the film, the three starring girls follow the attitudes of Winona Ryder, Rose McGowan and the like with respectable authenticity.

The time-tested exterior was the strongest spot for Pretty Persuasion. Evan Rachel Wood mumbles indistinctly through important plot setup details, until she has to start speaking devilishly sexy. Around this time, the story is distilled into running on Wood's sketchy sex appeal and small social issues, such as racism. On that point, it is James Woods who steals the scenes of homelife with Wood, and I yearned for him while the rest of the cast tried sheepishly to weather the motions of Wood's imposed sexual harassment trial against her english teacher, played with muted intensity by Ron Livingston.

The twist in perspective at the film's end leads to multiple climaxes and escalating emotional weight, until every character in the film, James Woods included, seems either less likable or a strange martyr.

This film really turns its face around too often to be either darkly funny, character-strong or emotionally important. It brings modern social issues forward, but doesn't really relate them to the world of these mean girls.

Landmark's Lagoon Theatre, Minneapolis
Auditorium 3
SRD
And I thought the scope lens at Uptown was substandard...