Pretty Persuasion

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!

In Beverly Hills, the fifteen years old evil manipulative aspirant actress student Kimberly Joyce (Evan Rachel Wood) convinces her friends Randa (Adi Schnall) and Brittany (Elisabeth Harnois) to falsely accuse their Literature and Arts teacher of sexual harassment. She manipulates also the lesbian journalist Emily Klein (Jane Krakowski), who is covering the case, to support their cause in the trial, which leads the group to a tragic and surprising conclusion.

This dark "Pretty Persuasion" is a Machiavellian and mean tale of manipulation. With another impressive performance of the gifted Evan Rachel Wood and the stunning James Wood, this dramatic dark comedy may shock with the crude sex scenes, the deranged family of Kimberly or the outrageous perjuries of the girls; or make the viewer laugh with the permanent black humor or the scenes of the racist Hank Joyce; or feel sorry for the poor teacher Percy Anderson. But certainly this movie shows an important message, how people may be easily manipulated by an intelligent person. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Garotas Malvadas" ("Bad Girls")

OK, that was a lame joke, but it's exactly what I thought of when I finished watching Pretty Persuasion. After touring Hollywood Video going around in circles a million times, a cute guy that I just had to flirt with recommended Pretty Persuasion and said that it was a huge recommendation. Well, I had to look cute and like I was interested, so I rented it, I watched it this morning just expecting a good movie, but I have to say that this was a good recommendation, because it was a great movie. I just love dark comedies, even if they push the edge, this was just a meaner version of Mean Girls, in my opinion it's a mixed version of Mean Girls and Cruel Intentions to sum it up. Pretty Persuasion is a great film with good acting, a twisted story, and has some of the funniest dark scenes I have seen in a while, James Woods was the show stealer for me, but the whole cast did a fantastic job pulling the story together well.

Kimberly Joyce is a student at high class Beverly Hills High School, she has two friends, pretty and popular Britney, and a new Arab student, Randa. Kimberly and Britney want to be actresses and just live the high life. Kimberly's family life isn't all glam though with her gold digging step mother and neglectful, racist, alcoholic father who is all about image. But the girls take a giant leap in accusing their English teacher of sexual harassment to get famous. Or at least that's the motive that Kimberly has led the girls to believe.

Pretty Persuasion is a great dark comedy, I don't think it's for everyone though, it is flawed in some ways. Some of the messages are sent the wrong way and the direction was just alright, but I thought it ended brilliantly and for some sick reason I really liked Kimberly's sadistic side, her way of stabbing people with a smile on her face, she was wicked, but so cool in the way she did everything. The best performance besides Wood was James Woods, he was just dead on with his character and as much of a jerk as his character was, he was in some sick way still likable. I don't know why, I knew I was supposed to hate a lot of these characters, but I found them to be so human a the bored rich people who have nothing better to do than complain. I would recommend Pretty Persuasion, if you like dark comedies, this is right up your alley.

8/10

Pretty Persuasion Reviewed by Sam Osborn

Rating: 2 out of 4

Let's get one thing straight, I was not in any way offended by Pretty Persuasion. Many critics have disparaged the film for its aggressive subject matter, but I simply didn't find the film to be the least bit entertaining. I rarely take offense at the subject matter of a film, as long as it is necessary to the proper telling of the film's story. With Pretty Persuasion, the so-called offensive material is quite imperative for the telling of the story. That's not to say however, that I enjoyed the story. Instead of striving for a slick, intelligent and provocative film, Pretty Persuasion lapses into cruelty and absurdly misaimed satire that rarely evokes more than the sound of crickets from the audience. It seems to want to reside in a Napoleon Dynamite-esquire world, where normality was a disease cured centuries ago. But don't hold your breath Napoleon fans, these aren't the quasi-lovable characters of middle America from the Sundance cult phenomenon, but precocious, snooty Beverly Hill caricatures that would rattle the nerves of even the vainest of Hollywood celebs. There are, of course, the film's delightful little moments of hilarious shock factor (take, for example, Kimberly's dialogue with her stepmother) and some strangely impressive performances, but the screenplay hits its balls so far into left field that most of us are left shaking our heads in disappointment.

The film follows the devious scheming of Kimberly Joyce (Evan Rachel Wood) through her early years of high school. Teaming up with her newfound Arab friend Randa Azzouni (Adi Schnall), and boyfriend stealing bombshell, Brittany Wells (Elisabeth Harnois), the three set out to come forward with accusations of sexual assault, incriminating their easily distracted History teacher, Mr. Anderson (Ron Livingston), whose interest in young ladies has even reached into his marriage to Grace Anderson (Selma Blaire). Picking up the story is the stunning, lesbian reporter Emily Klein (Jane Krakowsi). Back at home, Kimberly's father, played outrageously by James Woods, worries only over the reputation of his wholesale electronics business. Divorced and re-married with a girlfriend on the side, Woods' character wanders about the house in robe and boxers, spouting ignorant and prejudiced comments and insisting he isn't being a racist, but simply telling the truth. Woods' performance is nearly worth recommending the film for. He steals scenes like they were candy from a baby, demanding the audience's concentration and truly earning the attention comically. This is Woods at his best, however ignorant his dialogue may be.

Evan Rachel Wood has rapidly become my favorite young female actor in Hollywood. Coming off impressive work in Samuel Bayer's Green Day music video "When September Ends" with Jamie Bell, Wood continues with her streak of phenomenal independent work in Pretty Persuasion. Despite the film's creative crutch, Wood takes her virtuoso bitchy role by storm. It's a daring, provocative, and hilarious performance by one of the industry's most intriguing actresses.

But despite all my raving of the film's performances, I still find myself bored with Pretty Persuasion. There's great potential here to make an intelligent and provocative film that could possibly pose as a comic version of American Beauty. Instead, director Marcos Siega takes the low road for scatological and low-brow goofiness, sacrificing all that could be satisfyingly funny. We're left alienated by Siega's quasi-normal world and not allowed to re-connect. The jokes range from sexist to racist, attempting to offend any and all the least bit interested in women's rights. Instead of achieving satire, the film finds itself wallowing in gross immaturity.

If you don't like films with unnecessary graphic language you may want to put "Pretty Persuasion" on your "films to avoid" list. There is so much exploitive language and perversions (mostly discussed rather than demonstrated) that I was regretting my purchase 20-25 minutes into the story, even though I was laughing fairly often-especially at Kimberly's (Evan Rachel Wood) comments about the relationship between her stepmother and her dog. I was amazed that Wood had agreed to do this thing and felt that in a few years she would regret having it on her resume.

But after about 30 minutes I was either hardened to the dialogue or had begun to understand that most of it was there for a legitimate purpose. And to enjoy "Pretty Persuasion" you have to be willing to accept a fair amount of what first seems needless exploitation. It used to be that teenagers went to the movies to see adults making love, now adults go to the movies to see teenagers making love, or at least speaking and behaving suggestively.

This black comedy and parental neglect social statement comes 50 years after Ed Wood featured it in "The Violent Years". Instead of a gang of privileged girls robbing gas stations, 15 year old Kimberly and her two classmates, best friend Brittany (Elisabeth Harnois) and shy Muslim girl Randa (Adi Schnall), bring sexual harassment charges against one of their teachers. And "Pretty Persuasion" introduces a lot more dark wit into the equation, a function of Skander Halim's screenplay and Marcos Siega's direction.

The most intriguing thing about "Pretty Persuasion" is the way it embeds a complementary theme about Hollywood hypocrisy in the very structure of the film. Promiscuous teenage girls and lesbians are established titillation elements in exploitation films. And during viewing you are subtly persuaded that you are watching a fairly graphic exploitation film. It is only upon later reflection that you realize that you have actually seen nothing, everything was implied by the dialogue or staged partially off-camera. A prudish viewer is not offended so much by the images as by the implications that they have supplied themselves.

As a response to the growing sexual exploitation element in films, beginning in the 1930's Hollywood self-regulated itself through the Hays Code. Its provisions stated that: "pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationships are the accepted and common thing", "scenes of passion should not be introduced when not essential to the plot", and "seduction or rape should never be more than suggested". The tone of "Pretty Persuasion" is disapproving of the sexual relationships that are taking place, its scenes of passion are essential to the plot, and the seduction takes place off camera; making it at least technically in compliance with the old code.

The story is told from Kimberly's point of view and "Pretty Persuasion is a good example of the power of POV in fostering identification and sympathy for the character through whom we are witnessing the main events. By the end most viewers are perversely hoping that Kimberly will be successful. Few actors could elicit sympathy for this character but Wood manages to do so, you work to resist her but ultimately you lose.

You are further won over at the end when you realize that Kimberly's cynicism is largely justified, even if her actions are not. Were she able to choose, Kimberly would not elect to so cynical, it is simply a reflection of a world that is a major disappointment to her. So the character Wood brings to the screen is one that you go from hating, to sympathizing with, to admiring.

The theme of cynicism, as well as its cause and effect, has never been better dealt with than in this film. Using sex as her commodity and insightful analysis of other's weaknesses as her weapon, the disillusioned Kimberly is pretty much able to manipulate the world to suit her designs.

Wood is becoming the Tuesday Weld of her generation but is treating us to stuff in her mid- teens that Weld did not do until her mid-20's. Think of "Pretty Poison" and "I Walk the Line". Or even more appropriately Weld''s portrayal of Abigail in "The Crucible", because at its core "Pretty Persuasion" is a modern version of Arthur Miller's classic; an intriguing blend of "The Crucible", "To Die For" and "Heathers".

After watching Wood in "Pretty Persuasion", you realize that it is not something to be purged from her resume but something she should highlight.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.