The 1999 movie Cruel Intentions is a beloved cult classic among audiences worldwide. It is a modern retelling of the 1782 French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses. The main plot of Cruel Intentions follows step-siblings Sebastian (Ryan Philippe) and Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who read an article by their headmaster’s daughter Annette (Reese Witherspoon). Annette writes about how she plans to wait until marriage to have sex. The pair then bet on whether or not Sebastian can get Annette to sleep with him. If Sebastian succeeds, he gets to spend one night with Kathryn. But if Kathryn wins, she gets his beloved car.
Sebastian goes through with sleeping with Annette and breaks up with her, but in the process, realizes he loves her. At the end (spoilers ahead), Sebastian dies for Annette after saving her from getting hit by a car. Meanwhile, Annette exposes Kathryn for the manipulative villain she is, ultimately leading to her demise. The cast gave unforgettable performances that helped create a lasting legacy that still exists today.
Due to this legacy, Amazon Prime Video decided to capitalize off the success of the original movie by rebooting it into a TV show in December 2023. Sarah Catherine Hook, Zac Burgess, and Savannah Lee Smith play the original three main characters from the movies, with their names slightly altered. Hook plays Caroline Meteruil, the president of her sorority, Delta Phi. Burgess plays Lucien Beaumont, treasurer of his fraternity, Alpha Gamma. Lastly, Smith portrays Annie Grover, a new student at Manchester College—as well as the Vice President of the United States’s sheltered daughter.
The show begins with a whimper by showing a hazing incident that occurred the prior year. Scott (Khobe Clarke) gets hit in the back of the head with a beer can, triggering him to have a seizure and end up in the hospital. As a result of the incident (and his father being a Congressman), Greek life on campus is under probation with the culprit being unknown. A year later, Scott is back. As a way to fight the probation, Caroline sinks her claws into the unsuspecting Annie, who falls right into her trap. She enlists the help of her stepbrother, Lucien, to sleep with Annie to convince her to join Delta Phi. In exchange, he’ll get to sleep with Caroline. If he fails, Caroline will get his car.
Unfortunately, the loyalty (or lack thereof) to the original seems to end there, as the show focuses primarily on Greek life and the controversy surrounding it. We’re introduced to characters like Blaise (John Harlan Kim), a member of Alpha Gamma who attempts to make Scott president in order to gain power on and off campus. It also introduces an overdone plot of CeCe (Sara Silva)—Caroline’s overachieving sorority sister who helps organize and plan all things Delta Phi related—sleeping with her professor.
Though in the original CeCe gets with her violin teacher, the plot is executed much more boldly whereas in the reboot, it is a boring, redundant storyline that makes watching paint dry seem much more interesting. At the time, this kind of storyline was not portrayed as much for teen audiences as it is today. So, for a movie to broadcast this kind of relationship made it feel scandalous, but not in a turn-your-head away in disgust kind of way, but in a turn-your-head away and keep watching because things just got interesting. We’ve had plenty of teacher-student relationships in TV and film since Cruel Intentions, so for this plot to be recycled just makes it feel lackluster and plain.
Cruel Intentions tries dipping its foot in multiple storylines that end up with said foot becoming bruised, blistered, and frostbitten. It doesn’t have a clear idea of what direction it wants to steer in, and the messy relationships, as well as the unlikeable characters makes, it hard to root for just about anybody throughout the course of the show.
Annie, as naive as she is, is an enjoyable character, but just isn’t fleshed out enough to bring me to hope the show gets renewed for a second season. Two highlights were Scott and CeCe. Scott had a loveable, himbo energy, comparable to that of a golden retriever. CeCe was the one of the only people I wished the best for, as it was clear she had been chewed up and spit out by far too many people in her life (people being Caroline).
I know it’s not realistic to want a reboot of a movie or TV show to stick to the exact original material, and I’m not saying that’s what I wanted from this show. If I did, I would’ve just watched the original again. I wanted a story that gave me the nostalgic feels of the movie with a new generation’s unique take on it. The show felt unsure of itself and its audience. In fact, I don’t really know who the show was trying to cater to at the end of the day. Perhaps a teen audience, but they didn’t really attempt to do so farther than using two or three Olivia Rodrigo songs that didn’t fit into the old money, rich-beyond-comprehension feel they were trying to achieve. At the same time, I can’t imagine any person over 30 wanting to deal with the poorly written, out of touch brats called protagonists in this show.
Cruel Intentions proves one singular point: nothing will be better than the original. I mean, they didn’t even bother using The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony, instead opting for a cover of the iconic song so deeply rooted in Cruel Intentions’s legacy. With all of Prime Video’s successes surrounding teen shows, they were bound to fail sooner or later. They set their hopes far too high on a show that just feels like it was filmed on an overly bright, fake TV set. The original movie was full of creativity and broken stereotypes as to what a teen drama should or would look like. Meanwhile, the show fails to add any sense of creativity, instead reusing old plots that have since become stale and far too common. Prime Video gave the world exactly what it didn’t need: a reminder that movies and TV shows today aren’t as good as they used to be, whether it was 20 or just five years ago.
