Cruel Intentions Film Analysis (1913 words)

The use of flim language can help determine a viewer's response to the ideas, people and issues presented in a film. Explain how this occurs with reference to at least one feature film that you have seen.

Cruel Intentions is a movie based on the 1762 novel Les Liasons Dangereuses, a classic tale of sordid mind games in 18th century Paris upper classes. The use of film language emphasises various themes and ideas of love, manipulation, people, trust, betrayal teenagers and most importantly sex. The use of camera shots, camera angles, symbols, colours and music plays an important role in highlighting the underlying themes that the movie upholds. The film has to a certain extent, different perspective on values and attitudes in life by promoting people like sex toys without considering their feelings or their future. Cruel Intentions has a sophisticated style that will also strongly appeal to an adult audience not normally drawn towards shallow teen dramas.

Actress Reese Witherspoon in the Oval Office on Ju...

English: Reese Witherspoon at the premiere for Wat...

Reese Witherspoon at the 83rd Academy Awards

The film promotes fresh young faces and a hip soundtrack, but it actually has something to say about life and human nature; it's not just about who you're going to screw at the prom. Cruel Intentions isn't just any typical teen hit filled with nudity and sexual fantasies, it's a movie that shares a taste for cruelly manipulating others, using charm, lies and deception to make others miserable.

Kathryn (Sarah Michele Gellar) acts like a "Marcia Brady" in public to maintain her reputation as the student body president, but under this respectable front lurks a mean spirited, coke snorting evil conscience. Her stepbrother, Sebastian, (Ryan Phillippe) is a tad less hypocrite; he also takes advantage of the people around him just for the thrill of conquest. But the stakes are dramatically upped when Sebastian sets out to seduce Annette (Reese Witherspoon),