Cruel Intentions

Where to even begin with this? Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair all deliver fantastic staring roles. There’s also some great co-starring performances from Joshua Jackson, Eric Mabius, Sean Patrick Thomas and Christine Baranski.  As you can tell, the cast list for this is completely endless, and it’s seeming with talent which is an absolute pleasure to watch. With everyone being so talented, the chemistry between each characters becomes believable, which is something you always need in a film. Sarah delivers a seductive, manipulative Kathryn, fantastically portrayed. Ryan Phillippe plays Sebastian, who I would argue is our main character, and is again a manipulative, selfish person.  I honestly don’t know how Sebastian could ever complain when he had Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair, all at the same time! I’ll be honest, I went into this completely blind, but this is how I like to watch films now. I knew the synopsis via letterboxd and jumped straight into it, not knowing what to expect.  The great thing is, even with five minutes of the runtime remaining, I still didn’t know what to expect. Every trope or ending that I thought it was going to finish on, it didn’t. I have major respect for that, keeping me intrigued as to what was going to happen, going against my guesses. There’s some fantastic set designs and costumes which are used to create such a unique, beautiful theme of richness and smugness.  I thought this was expertly executed, written, directed and everything they could have done, they did right.  Characters had depth, scenes had meaning and the narrative was constantly moving forward. I absolutely hate in films when they spend so much time messing about, just trying to add to the runtime with meaningless scenes. This doesn’t.  After enjoying this so much, I’m genuinely intrigued to watch the series on Amazon, what’s everyone’s thoughts on it?