Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Cortechba Overrated

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

madbandit20002000 When people think they're "entitled" to be famous and successful are willing to do anything to achieve those things without perseverance and hard work, but with treachery and manipulation, you want to throw up (I do when a new reality TV show comes on). The harsh but honest satire, "Pretty Persuasion" takes that attitude and mixes it with some orange juice-like humor. It doesn't go down easily but it's worth it.Aspiring thespian and the daughter of an anti-Semitic, retail electronics mogul, Kimberly Joyce (old soul Evan Rachel Wood of "The Wrestler") has trouble getting on the fictional teen TV soap, "Dysfunctional" since she doesn't stand out, let alone live in Beverly Hills. Having a sexy rep at the prestigious high school she attends doesn't help either. Kimberly's smart, though. Insidiously smart to enlist her "best friends", ditzy Canadian import Brittany (Elisabeth Harnois of "Mars Needs Moms") and shy Arabic new girl Randi (Adi Schnall) into slandering their straight arrow English teacher, Percy Anderson (Ron Livingston of "Office Space") with a sexual molestation charge.It is basic revenge against said teacher ditched Kimberly from the lead role in a school play, "The Diary Of Anne Frank", embarrassed Brittany during an audition and criticized Randi's bad grammar prose. All girls are in, and the media frenzy starts, but Kimberly has a more subversive reason for the chaos.With a smart script by Skander Halim (wrote some eps for the Canadian teen sitcom, "18 To Life"), helmer Marcos Siega ("Chaos Theory" and some eps of "Dexter", Veronica Mars" and "The Vampire Diaries") has wrapped a fully functional satirical ball that has social class, bigotry and anarchistic fame threaded inside. This maybe a look into the posh life, high school-style, but it's sadly universal.Ms. Wood ensures her career's longevity by looking angelic with a sinister, calculating outlook. "It's like the world's an orchestra, and I'm the conductor," she shamelessly admits to one of her pals. She's also a hoot when shooting bestiality jokes at her trophy stepmom (Jaime King, "Sin City"). The cast's an orchestra's too; standouts include Jane Krakowski ("30 Rock", "Ally McBeal") as a in-the-closet TV reporter who's "seduced" (!) by both the scandal and Kimberly; Livingston, whose all-too-strictness hides a legit source of perversion and Schnall, whose mousy demeanor opens her to subtle bigotry and manipulation.Comically outstanding is Oscar nominee James Woods ("Ghosts of Mississippi") who, despite his bigoted vitriol, has a moral core as Kimberly's dad. I wish there was more of Danny Comden as Livingston's fellow teacher, a goofy "law expert" who pathetically aides him in court, but he also leaves an impression.A nominee for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, "Pretty Persuasion" hits the bulls-eye when noting that fame can be a narcotic and morality can be an afterthought.

reidy-christopher While I watched "Pretty Persuasion" I couldn't help but sit there and catalog all the movies it was trying to be. "Heathers" came to mind first, then "Election", then "Cruel Intentions", then "To Die For" and even, "Pretty Poison", which I've never seen, but have read about (and that one came out about forty years ago). Yes, I'll admit by now that this Teen-Age-Badgirl-Master-Manipulator idea is officially a genre, and going into "Pretty Persuasion" you kind of accept that it is going to tread familiar ground...but seriously...so familiar you can't but sit there and consciously think about those other, better films? Every caustic, nasty bit of dialog that came out of Evan Rachel Wood's mouth just crashed to the floor of the set and laid there. It wasn't shocking. It was shockingly bad. And sophomoric. I remember when I first saw "Heathers" at the movies in 1989. I remember that experience because it literally was shocking. I was actually shocked by it. But delighted too. Because it was so original and yes, witty, it made it enjoyable and that was even all the more shocking. This movie tries to do the same thing but fails miserably. It fails because, A.) It was all ready done twenty years ago and B.) It was grade school level humor at best. Seriously, it was embarrassing. James Wood's made a complete fool of himself. I've never liked him anyway, but here he confuses acting disgusting with actually being disgusting, which seems to be a problem he shares with the filmmakers. Every single character in the movie is a cretin. No one has a sense of humor, let alone a wicked one. The only appealing character is the one played by Jane Krakowski, but she isn't given much to do in a subplot that goes nowhere. Most of the actors were very good, but again, in the service of characters you actually despise, what is the point? There's no one to route for here, even in an anti-hero kind of way. The filmmakers must've sensed this on some unconscious level, because the film veers into straight melodrama in the last half hour or so, which makes the questionable idea of viewing the movie even more disturbing. There's also a sort of anti-Americanism going on. There's this Arab teen girl character who is the butt of jokes and then ends up blowing her brains out in some weird bid for audience sympathy. Is the writer an Arab? He seems to hate the U.S. Of course we're all shallow, psychopathic, materialistic, morally bankrupt miscreants, yeah, I know, we get it, but that doesn't keep the Arab family from making a bee-line to Beverly Hills. Kind of a mixed message, huh? How about Poughkipsie? I get the feeling this film got made because someone (from Arabia maybe?)had deep enough pockets to drop a huge bag of money on some movie executive's desk and say "Make my kid's movie." I say this because the whole thing reeks of "vanity project". What person in Hollywood read the script and thought, "Oh, yeah, a sub-par rip-off of "Heathers"! Let's do it!" But apparently that bag of money was big enough to attract top acting talent and above the line contributors. Which is why this gets three stars. The photography was excellent. The Director of Photography knew where to put the camera. At least he knew what he was doing.

TwoCrude Spoilers within.I have to add my review of this film, as it runs so counter to the vast majority of the posts. I'll digress for a moment.I remember fighting through two of Shakespeare's comedies in 9th grade. A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It. The iambic pentameter most certainly did not jump off the page. I complained to my teacher that the jokes seemed to be lacking, at least to my 13 year old sensibilities. He told me to reread the plays. Later that year, we watched a film of "Midsummer". The dialogue crackled with life and the almost 400 year old work made all of us smile and discuss the keen ear the Bard had. I saw it as the classic it is.Assuredly, this movie is NOT Shakespeare. Nor is it "Heathers", "She's All That", or even "Disturbing Behavior". It's not even "10 Things I Hate About You" (I know, 10 Things is just "Taming of the Shrew" with a good soundtrack). The films I've just listed had fairly well written scripts. Pretty Persuasion is not funny. It's nowhere in the vicinity of funny. It's a few states over, like the distance from Arizona to western Maryland. The directing of "Persuasion" is unremarkable. As are most of the performances. Wood is good in the unredeemable bitch role, I admit. Her performance wasn't worth the movie's screen time, however.When the Palestinian girl killed herself, I shook my head, wishing fervently that I'd walked out of the theater much earlier in this misbegotten film. Maybe the theater manager would have refunded my money.Rent "Cruel Intentions" instead, or any of the other movies that I mentioned.

lcunningham1986 when I stumbled across this movie on demand I wasn't really sure what to expect, but thankfully it was £2.50 well spent. Normally Dark comedies aren't really my cup of tea but this movie blew me away, would have watched it all over again if it wasn't 3 in the morning! Every performance was outstanding, i loved James Wood as the dad I thought he was hilarious in spite of his racist remarks and once again Evan Rachel Woods is on top form, conducting the world to exact her revenge on 'best friend' Brittany who stole her boyfriend and despite all this I still found myself rooting for her in the end. The best quote to sum up this movie is 'It's like the world is this orchestra and I'm the conductor.' it just shows the manipulation Kimberley Joyce can get away with! I would watch this movie again in a heartbeat, but thats because i'm not easily offended by a movie and can enjoy it for what it is!!