High School Confidential - Der Teufel trägt Minirock

I personally was not disappointed by the film. I am continually impressed by Evan Rachel Wood's skills as an actress. Her darkness was so real, the evil inside of her was almost moving. Hilariously dark and witty, James Woods and Evan Rachel Wood kept me laughing and in shock. Pretty Persuasion left me sitting in the theater saying "Oh my god, they did not just say that. Wait, yes they did just go there". The ending was fitting somehow. As shocking and comical as Pretty Persuasion was, it did deliver a powerful message. People are flawed. Not everything in this world is wholesome and good. When it came to manipulation and intelligence, Kimberly Joyce had everything in spades, but when it comes to deception sometimes getting what you want is the easy part, realizing what that says about you and what it all means is the difficult part. Pretty Persuasion is one of the better dark films i've seen come around since Ghost World. Although shocking and sexual, there is no real nudity or graphic sex scenes in the whole film. Everything is left to the imagination, just like Kimberly wanted. Creul Intentions meets Mean Girls on steroids. I loved every shocking minute of it.

Greetings again from the darkness. This one just defies all labels, categories and genres. Definitely not a teen comedy, but it is part Black Comedy, Social Commentary and is written like a spoof ... but it is not a spoof of anything in particular.

The first feature film from director Marcos Siega is off beat as both a comedy and drama. The viewer finds himself in situations of uncomfortable, guilty laughter while at the same time mesmerized by the social topics and excellent acting. The cadence of the dialogue is beyond description and is perfectly displayed at the dinner table with Evan Rachel Woods, her dad played by an over the top James Woods and her new step mom. The family dog plays a big part in the "conversation".

The heart of the story is the devilishly orchestrated false (or are they?) accusations of sexual harassment against drama teacher Ron Livingston (so great in "Office Space"). With so many different agendas at play, we can't help but be drawn into to this story on many levels. Jane Krakowski ("Ally McBeal") shows a real Priscilla Presley side as the lesbian, glory-hound reporter. Selma Blair (Reece Witherspoon's nemesis in "Legally Blonde") is terrific as Livingston's semi-supportive wife.

Make no mistake, the real star of the film, and the reason it works is the extraordinary talents of Evan Rachel Wood (just plain brilliant in "Thirteen"). Wood takes teen ego and self-centeredness and revenge to a whole new level. As one of the male teacher's states, her character is the devil. Watching how she manipulates her friends, teachers, boys and adults is quite the guilty pleasure. Very few actresses her age could pull off the role of this complex character.

The music of the film is very interesting. It is almost as if each character has their own theme song - you can really sense the focal point of the scene by the music. Not sure who to recommend this to as it is impossible to categorize. If you are up for a strange, outside the box story that is well acted, simply filmed and full of uncertain laughter, then this is the one for you!

"Pretty Persuasion" is more outrageous than the combined monologues of Ricky Gervais on the Golden Globes Awards.

The people who will definitely get their money's worth out of this film are the easily offended; for them there is something to offend every couple of minutes.

A number of critics felt the film "...hovered uncomfortably between comedy and satire..." but who cares about genre when it's this funny.

I loved it.

Despite the high school setting - elite Roxbury Academy in Beverly Hills - it's not another "Clueless" or "Mean Girls". It possesses more the anarchic spirit of "God Bless America".

The script is clever; perception is a key motif throughout, and the way the film revisits earlier scenes to show what really happened is inspired.

Although Evan Rachel Wood's character, Kimberly Joyce, seems interested in the well-being of others, she really has no filter; manipulation and passive aggressiveness are built into her DNA. Although she blatantly parades her hypocrisy, she also exposes it in just about everyone around her - often hilariously. In the end though, vulnerabilities are exposed.

When she befriends a quiet, Middle Eastern student, Kimberly's cynical views on migrants, race, religion, sex and just about everything else come to the fore - nothing is sacred. However one commentator nailed it when he said that Kimberly does all this with such obvious pleasure in naughtiness that she's impossible to hate.

The film has an original score by Gilad Benamram. It's light and chilled, and acts as a dispassionate commentator as events unfold.

Evan Rachel Wood's performance is mesmerizing, However, I have one criticism, as others have noted, she slurs her words and speaks so fast it's sometimes hard to understand her. I found myself straining to catch the dialogue, but I didn't want to miss a word because I was enjoying it so much.

"Pretty Persuasion" is fifteen years old now, but has lost none of its bite. Forget the negative comments. This one will have you on the edge of your seat waiting for Kimberly to reveal the next nugget of political incorrectness.

I've liked every effort I've seen by young actress Evan Rachel Wood ("13" being a stellar example, and "Missing" being another). This is no exception. "Pretty Persuasion" is akin to "Election" (Reese Witherspoon) for the first half, with a dark, witty sense of humor about high school aged people playing mental "chess" with each other, their teachers, and parents. Slowly the story morphs darker, into something like "To Die For" (Nicole Kidman), with a media-made, fame-driven main character willing to do whatever it takes to reach a twisted idea of recognition and advancement. THIS would be enough for the film to be interesting and well done within its own right, but then it goes further. Further. This film is billed as a comedy. If it is, it is not for long… a) if you watch the entire thing, and b) you pay attention. I was expecting a good film. I received even more.

"Pretty Persuasion" crosses "Mean Girls" with an updated slant on Lillian Hellman's "The Children's Hour," but its social and political satire feels in too many scenes like an extended "Saturday Night Live" sketch.

The film is heavy-handedly based on the sociological findings that instead of doing Columbine-like violence, teen age girls lash out with spiteful aggression in social situations. The film makes the extended case that teen girls are more like Machiavelli than "Carrie" or as in "Heathers." The male debut writer and director can't resist adding in dollops of male fantasy about girls and women. Even under the guise of examining how ambiguous male-driven media messages from Britney Spears to Lolita to TV shows, etc. create confusing role models of appropriate behavior for girls in their real lives, males are seen as clueless pawns of younger females.

One effective touch is to replay scenes in flashbacks from different angles to show how miscommunications and misunderstandings can occur and be manipulated.

Individual scenes and caricatures are very funny, particularly James Wood doing a comic take on his "Ghosts of Mississippi" role. Adi Schnall is touching as a naive Muslim student thrown in with the sharks of the American Dream. Jane Krakowski enjoys making fun of the ambitious bombshell roles she usually plays. Elisabeth Harnois is the most affecting as the best friend, but she is so natural she almost seems to be in a different movie. Selma Blair has a brief funny scene as a wife mocking her husband's fantasies, though a notable episode of TV's "Angel" did the exact same scene with more dark bite, as well as the general theme taken up more effectively by Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Ryan Murphy in "Popular."

But most of the rest of the broad, scatter shot attacks on ethnic, racial and sexual PC clichés end up just wooden and go on repetitively for too long. Individual lines like "I can sympathize with the immigrant experience because I'm Canadian." are amusing, as are ongoing jokes about putting on the story of Anne Frank as the high school play, but pile up in dialog that even the commanding Evan Rachel Wood has trouble making seem real.

The closing montage ties all the disparate themes together in a sudden shift of tone, but it was a long time getting there, in moving from the obvious to the touching to twists in using high school as the usual metaphor for the world at large.

The cinematography is all appropriate bright pink. The set design is full of visual jokes, more than the can be picked up quickly.

For a film set in the world of teenagers, there are few songs on the sound track, perhaps due to budget limitations, but more music might have helped the pacing.