Quit possibly the 2000s version of Heathers or Election and to a lesser extent the teenage version of To Die For with Nicole Kidman. Pretty Persuasion is a cynical and darkly twisted teenage comedy, with a razor sharp plot! This film is nothing short of brilliant, Evan Rachel Wood (who proved audiences she was talented alongside Holly Hunter in Thirteen) was a perfect choice for the role of Kimberly Joyce a trash talking, acid tongued, manipulative and devious teenager who is determined to win the role of Anne Frank in a school play.
Hoping she will achieve fame through her role as Anne, but after Kimberly's naive, best friend, Brittany Wells gets the role, Kimberly incites chaos in her Beverly Hills community by accusing her English teacher of sexual harassment. Kimberly also asks her best friends (Brittany) and Randa, a shy and harmless Arab girl to accuse him of sexual harassment...to make her unbelievable story, believable. But little do they know Kimberly has her own agenda to pretty much everything.
Pretty Persuasion is a tough and cynical genre film with a twist, taking the female high-school satire further and deeper than such predecessors as Heathers, Mean Girls and Election. Skander Halim's sharp satire employs the most sexually explicit dialog to be heard in an American teen movie, indie or Hollywood, over the past decade. When a father addresses his daughter as a "dirty little whore who gets it up her ass", you know you are witnessing a feature that many viewers will perceive as shocking, excessive, and totally jaw dropping. The whole movie may be "too much" for the more conservative public.
Starting of as a black comedy, Kimberly is a girl beyond her years, similar to Tuesday Weld in Pretty Poison, that boy Sammy in the novel "What Makes Sammy Run?" and Tracy Flick in Election. In looks and conduct, Kimberly may be a younger version (like I said above) of the equally amoral and immoral TV weather reporter Nicole Kidman played in Gus Van Sant's underestimated satire, To Die For. You'll either be offended by this film, or love it death and me, well, I love it to death, although teen mean girl films are getting predictable these days, Pretty Persuasion however changes that!! Especially with the perfect performances to top it off, Evan Rachel Wood is an amazing acctress, and well deserves an Oscar someday.
Overall, Pretty Persuasion is a perfect black comedy teen film, and certainly not for the light hearted, you've been warned, and it's not your average teen comedy. But, pure perfection.
7.5/10
Hoping she will achieve fame through her role as Anne, but after Kimberly's naive, best friend, Brittany Wells gets the role, Kimberly incites chaos in her Beverly Hills community by accusing her English teacher of sexual harassment. Kimberly also asks her best friends (Brittany) and Randa, a shy and harmless Arab girl to accuse him of sexual harassment...to make her unbelievable story, believable. But little do they know Kimberly has her own agenda to pretty much everything.
Pretty Persuasion is a tough and cynical genre film with a twist, taking the female high-school satire further and deeper than such predecessors as Heathers, Mean Girls and Election. Skander Halim's sharp satire employs the most sexually explicit dialog to be heard in an American teen movie, indie or Hollywood, over the past decade. When a father addresses his daughter as a "dirty little whore who gets it up her ass", you know you are witnessing a feature that many viewers will perceive as shocking, excessive, and totally jaw dropping. The whole movie may be "too much" for the more conservative public.
Starting of as a black comedy, Kimberly is a girl beyond her years, similar to Tuesday Weld in Pretty Poison, that boy Sammy in the novel "What Makes Sammy Run?" and Tracy Flick in Election. In looks and conduct, Kimberly may be a younger version (like I said above) of the equally amoral and immoral TV weather reporter Nicole Kidman played in Gus Van Sant's underestimated satire, To Die For. You'll either be offended by this film, or love it death and me, well, I love it to death, although teen mean girl films are getting predictable these days, Pretty Persuasion however changes that!! Especially with the perfect performances to top it off, Evan Rachel Wood is an amazing acctress, and well deserves an Oscar someday.
Overall, Pretty Persuasion is a perfect black comedy teen film, and certainly not for the light hearted, you've been warned, and it's not your average teen comedy. But, pure perfection.
7.5/10