(Credit: Amazon.com)
Director:
Marcos Siega
Starring:
Evan Rachel Wood……….Kimberly Joyce
James Woods……….Hank Joyce
Ron Livingston……….Percy Anderson
Jane Krakowski……….Emily Klein
Elisabeth Harnois……….Brittany Wells
Adi Schnall……….Randa Azzouni
Selma Blair……….Grace Anderson
Samuel Goldwyn Films, Roadside Attractions and Prospect Pictures present Pretty Persuasion. Written by Skander Halim. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexual content and graphic dialogue involving teens, and language).
The movie:
In the late 1980’s Michael Lehmann directed a flick that was as far from the Brat Pack craze as you could get. The film was Heathers, a dark-witted satire about the disenfranchised youth that comprised the MTV generation. Those who expected to be treated to a John Hughes-esque romp with Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, or Anthony Michael Hall, left the cineplexes sorely disappointed. What they got was a pre-shoplifting Winona Ryder; Jack Nicholson’s spitting image (Christian Slater); and a teenager who would gain fame in the early nineties when her TV persona moves to famous zip code in Beverly Hills with her parents and brother Brandon (Shannen Doherty).
Heathers was a wakeup call to every mother and father. It’s dark comedic sensibility with backbiting and backstabbing, where antagonists get a heaping spoonful of comeuppance, are not things Hollywood invented; they occur everyday. The movie is also a tutorial: a Drano cocktail is not the thing to drink when waking up to a hangover. After this motion picture no longer would the down-and-out lifestyle be regulated to Beverly Hills. It can happen anywhere in Middle America.
Since its release Hollywood has delivered us numerous teen comedies, though none more scathing than Heathers. Then Skander Halim had the idea to write about the “Whatever!” valley girl superficiality of high schoolers. Sure, the subject matter has been stereotyped to death, but imagine if Rachel McAdams from Mean Girls had a love child with American Psycho‘s Christian Bale. The result would be Kimberly Joyce, the protagonist and villain of a little seen film in 2005 called Pretty Persuasion.
Played devilishly well by Evan Rachel Wood (The Upside of Anger), Kimberly is the center of attention as a student at a posh Beverly Hills high school. She comes from a broken home. Her bigot for a father has remarried and her new mother is like a Stepford wife who’s chemically imbalanced. Kimberly’s life at school isn’t any better. That is, until she befriends a Middle-eastern girl named Randa Azzouni (Adi Schnall). Randa is unsure of what it means to be a girl in America so Kimberly does her best at explaining just what is the best thing about this country. Randa would like to believe it is Sylvester Stallone, but it isn’t true. “It’s that anybody can sue anybody at anytime over anything.”
Despite Kimberly’s friendliness towards her new friend, she’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Actually, her attire consists of a grey skirt, a pink, buttoned-down top, and white, calf-high stockings, but you get the idea. Kimberly has aspirations of being a television actress. Even though she claims to know nothing about being sexy, her most recent audition – where she plays a French girl who has just dropped her baguette – was well liked by the casting directors. While she waits for a call back, Kimberly gets the lead role in the school’s drama production of The Diary of Anne Frank. But she makes the mistake of yelling an anti-Semitic statement about another girl’s father outside in the quad. As a result, Mr. Anderson (Ron Livingston), Kimberly’s English and drama teacher, pulls her from the play. This displeases her to no end, and she sets out to get revenge.
And what better revenge than claiming Mr. Anderson sexually harassed Kimberly’s best friend Brittany during drama class; Randa during detention; and herself? Weaving her black widow’s web of lies and deception, she gains the attention of the local media, including one female reporter (Jane Krakowski) who is infatuated with young Kimberly.
As weird as that may seem, it’s not the strangest aspect about Pretty Persuasion. Credit must be given to Skander Halim’s first feature-length script, for he has a knack for the vernacular. Why else would he have a Mr. Anderson complain about Randa’s testimony about him supposedly touching her on her boobs? “I would never say “boobs,” I’m an English teacher! Breasts… I would say breasts.”
Nevertheless, the flick is wishy-washy. The premise is unoriginal, as it comes off like a cheap amalgamation of Heathers and Alexander Payne’s Election. The so-called explosive topics of race, sex, materialism, and celebritydom are not full of shock value, as the writer might make you believe. So look beyond Pretty Persuasion‘s clichés and volatile subject matter to find a movie that is more than a simple revenge story. Watching the last few minutes you will both relish and detest what Kimberly Joyce had in mind when she set into motion the chain of events to publicly debase her English teacher.
Score: 6.5/10
The DVD:
VIDEO: How does it look?
(Presented in 2.35:1 Anamorphic widescreen)
The video transfer is sharp and crisp, but there are some specks in the film’s print. Occasionally, your eyes will divert to small flashes of white or black. It’s not a hindrance to your viewing pleasure, as it is not something you should spend time looking for.
Score: 8/10
AUDIO: How does it sound?
(Dolby Digital 5.1)
Pretty Persuasion is largely driven by dialogue. So there isn’t any distortion as it comes out of your speakers. Other than that, Gilad Benamram’s musical score, which is used sparingly in the feature, does not drown out Kimberly Joyce’s plan for world domination. (Okay, maybe that’s a stretch.)
Score: 8/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: A trailer bonanza…
Hope you like trailers, because that’s the only extras on the disc. Before you get to the main menu of the DVD, trailers for The Gospel and Sueno play. They can be accessed in the “preview” section as can: The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Oliver Twist, Into the Blue, and Saved!.
It would have been cool to have a commentary track by the duo behind the dark comedy (director Marcos Siega and screenwriter Skander Halim) and hear what it took to make Pretty Persuasion.
Score: 1/10
