This movie about a manipulative teen female is meant to be ironic and nasty in the vein of such classics as "Heathers" or at least of such worthy, if lesser, follow-ups as "Mean Girls." An utter failure.
To achieve true offense you must be either really crude and stupid or really bold and revolutionary. To achieve truly wicked wit you must be really smart -- and of course witty. "Pretty Persuasion" almost achieves the former qualities, but not quite. It's pretty stupid, and rather crude; it certainly isn't revolutionary (see below). The second goal -- truly wicked wit -- requires logic and intelligence in the script. And that is far, far away from what the makers of "Pretty Persuasion" have shown themselves capable of in this truly lamentable effort.
The fault, indeed, is not in the acting, which is at best accomplished and confident and at worst able and serviceable. It is in the writing, directing, and editing, which are all astonishingly inept.
Evan Rachel Wood as Kimberly Joyce is the alpha female, who does it all, wrecking lives left and right, for a boy. Hey, that's not hip; that's not cool! It's hard to see where this badly written story is meant to be going. It leads up to a jury trial in which Kimberly persuades two of her classmates (including Randa, a "Middle Eastern," i.e., Arab, girl in hijab, who is totally passive and commits suicide -- thus fulfilling several false stereotypes) to go along with her in accusing an English teacher of sexual harassment -- not a good idea for the alpha female, given that when she isn't listening to her obscene racist father (James Woods, who should be ashamed), is manipulating people by granting them oral and anal favors, or watching *. Kinberly is in no position to present herself as sexually innocent, and it is not ironic but simply illogical for her to bring forth such a case.
The private Beverly Hills high school is mere wallpaper. There's no portrait of school life here, and no sense of real personalities or social groupings or up to date lifestyles. Thus one of the most essential elements of this kind of comedy -- a highlighting of current teenage social patterns -- is missing.
How very unsophisticated and un-clever it was of Skander Halim, the screenwriter, to think this poorly organized series of mindlessly cruel and tasteless scenes, whose sole aim -- at which it fails -- is to cause outrage, would turn out to be somehow sophisticated and clever. Halim has almost no sense of the sophisticated schoolgirl sensibility or of current language.
"Pretty Persuasion" is bad, bad, bad. And given the promising trailers full of seemingly outrageous moments, it was a huge disappointment for anyone lured into theaters to see it this fall.
After this disaster, and with nothing else but a trail of minor TV behind him, it'll be very surprising if the director, Marcos Siega, ever does anything on film that is beyond mediocre. The high point of his career thus far may have been his role as a post production assistant for "Sleepless in Seattle." Good luck, Mr. Siega. Start out by finding another writer.
