Posted: 08/12/2005

Pretty Persuasion

(2005)

by Hank Yuloff

You’ve heard the phrase, “but it’s a dry heat,” used to explain the otherwise intolerable weather in some of our desert climates. You know it’s hot, but you may be able to deal with it. Pretty Persuasions is pretty as a comedy. But not as persuasive as the dark comedy it strives to be and that is where it was striving to be. I enjoyed the movie but not as much as the obnoxious, teenage-think-they-know-it-all a-holes sitting to the right of me did and I think that gives me a good handle on where this movie is going to be successful.

Those three teen boys (who, according to their not muffled cell phone conversation prior to the movie jumped theaters after seeing Four Brothers to hopefully see Evan Rachel Wood naked) laughed a lot louder at the funny parts than I (the older, more sophisticated movie watcher) and failed to laugh at the more subtle parts so I can tell you this movie will do boffo in the rental market as underage teen boys who sneak into this un-rated flick tell others in their demographic that you see (sort of) lots of sex and boobage through bras.

Pretty Persuasion is a story of privilege run amok in the form of a 15-year-old girl (Wood). Actress-wannabe Kimberly Joyce is shown in the first scene to be a very vulnerable girl, one little fish in a sea of teenage stars to be trying out for a stupid part on a low budget sitcom. She does not get the part. But when you put her back into her small pond of high school, she turns out to be the shark who seeks revenge as an appetizer to fame.

This revenge theme runs on a couple of parallel tracks throughout the movie. We are introduced immediately to it when we see Joyce watching her best friend Brittney Wells cavorting with her ex-boyfriend and later on when Kimberly, Brittney and their friend Randa decide to take revenge on an English /Drama teacher who has made their life less than perfect by accusing him of molestation. We find that Mr. Anderson (Ron Livingston) is not guilty of that but he certainly is not without a heart full of lust. One of the best scenes in the movie is a discussion between Livingston and fellow teacher Roger Nicholl (Danny Comden from Breakin’ All the Rules) where they talk about the sort of power many men feel teen age girls have to attract attention. Kimberly has learned all of the possible ways to get what she wants, from flirtations, to sex to deceit and is sharpening them as tools of her trade.

Wood is a terrific actress. I think her performance in Thirteen was better, but that was a dramatic role and comedy is very difficult to master. Her sex-addicted racist father is played incredibly by James Woods. How he was able to recite his lines without laughing through every take is amazing. The idiot teenagers next to me laughed particularly hard when Woods was on screen. The performance of new comer Adi Schnall as Kimberly’s token non-caucasion friend is wondrous. I can not understand how this nice girl got hooked up with Kimberly in the first place (their meeting on Randa’s first day of school is not shown) let alone became friends with her.

And now for that ending. It isn’t a spoiler to tell you that Kimberly ends up with tears on her face. This seemed completely wrong unless her facade has just crumbled but it hasn’t. She has gotten everything that she truly wants and should be able to keep the hidden demons under control.

Pretty Persuasion is not as dark as Heathers (1989), not as funny as Saved (2004), and is a completely mean-spirited version of Clueless (1995). While it is visually wonderful and the acting is acceptable, it should best be left for those teenyboppers who, themselves, see the world from the narrow focus of how many private ring tones they can have for their cell phones.

Hank Yuloff is our senior staffer in L.A. and a huge Drew Barrymore fan. Or was that Carey?

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