A Vixen, So Alone
Movie Review of 'Pretty Persuasion'
Volume 75, Number 32
| August 11 - 17,
2005FILMPRETTY
PERSUASIONDirected by Marcos
SiegaDistributed by Samuel Goldwyn
Films & Roadside
AttractionsOpens Aug. 12
Landmark Sunshine, Chelsea
Clearview, Lincoln Square
CinemaEvan
Rachel Wood (left) plays Kimberly Joyce, a Beverly Hills private school student,
who works hard constantly to get what she
wants. Here she seduces a newscaster, with ambitions of her own,
played by Jane
Krakowski.A Vixen So Alone
Accusing teacher of
harassment, teenage girl wreaks havoc at her Hollywood high
schoolBy SETH J.
BOOKEYEvan Rachel Wood pulls out all the
stops in “Pretty Persuasion.” Teen sexuality is a filmmaking
mainstay, whether it’s the passively seductive saunter of the title
character of “Lolita” or Christina Ricci’s Dede Truitt in
“The Opposite of Sex, ” whipping off her bikini top to see if she
can tempt her gay brother’s boy-toy
companion.In “Pretty
Persuasion,” Kimberly Joyce (Wood) combines her prurient talents and
devious mind to manipulate just about everyone in her orbit to get what she
wants.At first, what Kimberly wants is
fleeting––one day, a spot on a tawdry teen television
program––but as “Pretty Persuasion” progresses, she
spins a malicious web that satisfies a deep-seated need for revenge.
While a somewhat popular student at her
elite Beverly Hills private high school, she presents a complex morass of
resentment, confidence, libido, curiosity and intelligence. On an IQ test, she
fills in the dots with an expletive and breaks the computer. When she meets
Randa, a Middle Eastern girl, she shows her around the school and keeps
reminding Randa, “I’m a nice person,” while saying some rather
dreadful things to her new acquaintance about fellow students and the world in
general. Later, when Kimberly needs to get the media on her side, she seduces an
overeager newscaster (Jane Krakowski) with a line from a cheesy porn movie
featuring girl-on-girl sex: “I like cock too much to give it up, but
sometimes, I need a woman’s touch.”
“Pretty Persuasion” presents
people as dominoes that Kimberly is setting up to topple when she needs to. No
one is spared, it seems. When the time
is right, she drags her friends Brittany and new satellite Randa into a scheme
to accuse their drama teacher of sexual harassment. Mr. Anderson (Ron
Livingston) is innocent of the charges leveled at him, but several scenes make
clear that he does, in his heart, lust for his teenage students. Elsewhere on
the canvas director Marcos Siega paints, people are knee-deep in classism,
homophobia and general stupidity. It’s no wonder that Kimberly ultimately
identifies with a student who shoots up a similar school, showing no guilt for
anything she’s done.But Kimberly
is more than just talk. She gets her jollies from a clueless boyfriend she hates
and disrespects. She is willing to fellate the fellow though, when she needs his
lawyer father to help her plans
along.“Pretty Persuasion”
skillfully contrasts the morals of a society that punishes free expression of
ideas in public but cannot do anything about bigotry at the dinner table.
Kimberly’s anti-Semitic father carries on about the Jews ad nauseum, but a
remark about “a shyster lawyer,” is enough to get Kimberly booted
from the school’s production of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
In the hilarious opening dialogue, Randa
politely listens as Kimberly tells her, “If I couldn’t be a white
woman, I would be Asian, then, African American, but I would want Caucasian
features.” When Randa shows no horror, Kimberly next informs her how
horrible it would be to live life as an Arab woman. The point here seems to be
that if served up with just the right smile, almost any ugly statement can be
digested by most people. Undercutting our peers by indulging in backstabbing has
become both entertainment and everyday sport, something we’ve been fed by
our culture since “All About Eve” but which has now become
increasingly perfected with each new reality TV
show.As unpleasant as the proceedings
are, there are many funny performances here. Danny Comden, as Roger, the fellow
teacher who somehow convinces Mr. Anderson to let him be his defense attorney,
is hilariously inept; he’s passed the bar but learned everything he knows
from “Perry Mason” re-runs. James Woods is absolutely wonderful as
Kimberly’s ranting, sleazy father, a man so unhinged by his hatred of Jews
that he is convinced his subordinates at work are coughing in Yiddish code right
under his nose.A first-rate script and
spot-on performances make “Pretty Persuasion” a movie that should
not be missed, a nice alternative to a summer filled with aliens, superheroes
and a terrifying array of explosions. Be aware that even a repeat viewing
doesn’t completely reveal the fascinating enigma that is Kimberly
Joyce.
Posted: Thu - August 11, 2005 at 10:10 PM
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Published On: Jun 20, 2009 07:03 PM
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