Valmont

R

Released Nov 17, 1989

2 hr. 17 min.

Drama

List

48%

33 Reviews

Tomatometer

69%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

French novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", by Choderlos de Laclos. The cynical story follows the fortunes of two scheming lovers, a pair of jaded aristocrats who manipulate and toy with each other on a grand scale, drawing others into their elaborate and dangerous erotic games.

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Critics Consensus

Valmont undermines the essential qualities of its main character's literary counterpart, but solid casting and Milo Forman's deft direction help mitigate those flaws.

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Steve D

This sort of thing has been done to death.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

Full Review

john m

While Forman has a knack for taking this kind of tiredsome melodrama and pushing it into a more interesting place, he can only do so much here until it starts to go through its own motions and seeing rich people cheat on each other again and again just isn't satisfying enough.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Though pales in comparison with Stephen Frears' Oscars darling Dangerous Liaisons from the previous year, Milos Forman's interpretation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 French epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses luminesces with Annette Bening's exquisite acting craft and diabolical sexual chicanery of the source.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Speaking to Ebert around the time of its release, Milos Forman relayed a conversation the director had with his screenwriter, where the latter pointed out that "there is not one thing we have so far in the script that's in the book." Taking the Frears adaptation the year prior as more genuinely adherent to the text, what makes this iteration so much more relevant, alive, and modern---even as it dons the aesthetic style of a conventional period piece, with its slow pacing and austere long shots---is precisely the sense of continuity the film implies between the class system of 1780s and that of the 1980s (a point that only anachronistically can be afforded the French text). If the Frears version ultimately echoes the morality tale melodrama of the original novel, a story where the debauched in the end get their just desserts, then Forman's film shifts the emphasis instead to the political structures underlying social mores, a narrative not about the corruption of the innocent or the redemption of the dissolute, but something closer to a Bildungsroman where the young are instructed in the materialism and wantonness of the world, made to give up romantic idealism for social careerism. Though the pace is slower, the narrative more unwieldy, the characters a bit blurrier, and the lead performances less seductively captivating---albeit with far better turns by the supporting cast, echoing the different focus---VALMONT is the crueler film precisely because it is the colder one, less forgivably modern and so more monstrous in its unflinching presentation of class hierarchy.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Like Jack Clayton's The Great Gatsby, it should be ripped from its literary routes and therefore treated as seperate material. As a film, Milos Forman's Valmont is suspenseful, rewarding, and thoroughly entertaining.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This movie was sad and cruel. I was disgusted by the way two seemingly intelligent adults used children for their entertainment.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

Full Review

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Milos Forman

Director

Colin Firth

Valmont

Annette Bening

Merteuil

Meg Tilly

Madame de Tourvel

Fairuza Balk

Cecile

Sîan Phillips

Madame de Volanges

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94%

83%

Dangerous Liaisons

43%

54%

Article 99

75%

49%

Blaze

88%

61%

Scandal

71%

72%

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Derek Malcolm

Guardian

You do wonder sometimes whether it is not a little too sweetly fetching for its own good. No one could have accused the Frears film of that.

Aug 18, 2021

Full Review

Geoff Brown

Times (UK)

Valmont, then, proves a mixed blessing; a sumptuous treat for the eyes, a quiet disappointment for the mind.

Aug 18, 2021

Full Review

Sheila Benson

Los Angeles Times

Colin Firth's Valmont is pleasant, a dreadful thing to say about one of literature's most magnetic seducers.

Feb 9, 2015

Full Review

Rene Jordan

El Nuevo Herald (Miami)

A splendidly beautiful film, yet totally useless. [Full review in Spanish]

Jul 5, 2022

Full Review

Philip French

Observer (UK)

In every way inferior to Stephen Frears's film.

Aug 18, 2021

Full Review

Harriet Waugh

The Spectator

Milos Forman's film is a mere confection in comparison to Stephen Frear's one, but in the way that confections can give real entertainment.

Jul 20, 2018

Full Review

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Synopsis

French novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", by Choderlos de Laclos. The cynical story follows the fortunes of two scheming lovers, a pair of jaded aristocrats who manipulate and toy with each other on a grand scale, drawing others into their elaborate and dangerous erotic games.

Director: Milos Forman
Distributor: Orion Pictures
Production Co: Tobis Filmkunst, LW Editora, Constantin Film, Transmundo Films, Condor Vídeo, Madman Entertainment, Concord Films, Transmundo Home Video, Orion Home Video, Concorde Home Entertainment, AMLF, Herald Film Company, Nea Kinisi, Image Entertainment Inc., Orion Pictures
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 17, 1989, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 30, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $572.9K
Sound Mix: Surround

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