Pretty Persuasion

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")

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.

"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.

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.

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