Valmont - A Milos Forman Film VHS Video Tape

This listing is for Valmont - A Milos Forman Film VHS Video Tape.  

Actors: Colin Firth, Annette Bening, Meg Tilly, Fairuza Balk, Sian Phillips

Director: Milos Forman

MPAA rating: R (Restricted)

Media Format: NTSC, VHS, Color, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned

Run time: 2 hours and 17 minutes

Language: English

Studio: Orion Home Video

While the movie "Dangerous Liaisons" (a literal translation of Choderlos Laclos's novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses") was also much more literal in following the plot of the book, I found it disappointing. It had a good script, a good cast, but no soul. John Malkovich was not Valmont, Glenn Close was not Madame de Merteuil, and I couldn't remotely envision either of them generating sparks either off each other or anyone else. But Milos Forman's reworking of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" as the movie "Valmont" is a success all around, and a much better film than its predecessor.

There are two areas in which the movie departs radically from the book. I always thought the ending of the book was too slanted toward the need to show that crime does not pay, and hence Madame de Merteuil gets her comeuppance in a disastrous lawsuit which reduces her to penury and a confluent smallpox which makes a transfigures her beauty into ugliness ("her soul is visible on her face"). In "Valmont", however, Forman realizes that evil often wins out, after a fashion, and so we have Madame de Merteuil, if not flaunting it over her rivals, still able to be herself and continue her life of malicious intrigue. The story opens when Madame de Merteuil, to revenge herself on being dumped by her lover the Count de Gercourt, who is going to marry Cecile de Volanges, a young girl right out of the convent whom he prizes for her innocence and virginity (a polar opposite from Madame de Merteuil who is amorality itself), maneuvers Valmont, her old friend and former lover, to seduce Cecile before her marriage, so that Gercourt will realize on his wedding night that he is getting damaged goods after all. Annette Bening was devastating in this role. She brought out all of the Madame de Merteuil's superficial charm which captivated so many people, and her underlying deviousness and soullessness. Colin Firth, who was hopelessly miscast as Darcy in the A&E production of "Pride and Prejudice", was just right as Valmont; unlike Malkovich, whose portrayal of Valmont was purely one-dimensional, Firth also showed the character's vulnerability and sensitivity which he tried to mask behind his cynicism. And Fairuza Balk was a delight as Cecile de Volanges; one wants to ask how anyone over the age of seven could be so hopelessly naive. But the biggest treat in this movie is Fabia Drake as Madame de Rosemonde, Valmont's old aunt. In the book, Madame de Rosemonde is a saintly contrast to Valmont's predatory selfishness; in this movie, she is wickedly funny and much more in sync with her nephew than she is in the book. (There is a delicious bit near the movie's end where Madame de Rosemond and Cecile share a joke at Gercourt's expense, right in the middle of Cecile's wedding.)

The second area where the movie and the book part company is the fate of Madame de Tourvel. Madame de Tourvel is the faithful wife who finally surrenders, against her better judgement, to the man she loves; only to discover that she has been used and abandoned. In the book, this so devastates her that she retires to a convent and dies of a broken heart. In the movie, however, she follows Valmont out of desperation, gets him to take her back into his bed for one more night, and coming to her senses in the morning, abandons him as he had previously left her, returning to her husband. Valmont is a truly pitiable figure at this point, especially when he realizes that Madame de Merteuil has played him far more effectively than he thought he was playing Madame de Tourvel; Firth's acting in this movie makes us sympathize with Valmont, whereas Malkovich just made us glad he got what was coming to him. In the end, "Valmont" is not "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and it doesn't try to be. It's a reworking of the book on its own merit, and it stands up brilliantly.

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