accessAtlanta

'Pretty Persuasion': Cynical and funny, but succumbs to smugness

By MELINDA ENNIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

When we meet Kimberly, the pretty 15-year-old persuader of "Pretty Persuasion," we expect another in the "Heathers" genre of mean-girl satires. But the movie shifts tones as abruptly as a teenager's mood swings.

Misbehaving parents, teachers and students populate this profoundly cynical script, and none of them escapes its often wickedly hilarious bite. But the movie eventually succumbs to an overbearing smugness and an ending that drives it totally off course.

Roadside Attractions

'Pretty Persuasion'

C+

The verdict: At times poisonously funny, this mean-girl satire succumbs to terminal smugness and an inappropriate ending.

Director: Marcos Siega
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Ron Livingston, James Woods, Jane Krakowski, Elisabeth Harnois
Run time: 104 minutes
Release date: August 12, 2005
Rating: Not rated, but contains strong sexual content.

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

As the film opens, we see Kimberly ("Thirteen's" Evan Rachel Wood) writhing seductively at an audition for a new reality show called, appropriately, "Dysfunction." She doesn't get the part, but later expresses happiness at being white because "as a woman, it's the best race to be, especially if you want to be an actress."

Kimberly attends exclusive Roxbury Academy in Beverly Hills. She describes her classmates as the kids of celebrities and famous people, "like the lawyer who defended the baseball player who killed his wife."

With her shining chestnut hair and sedate pink-and-gray uniform, she seems the perfect all-American girl. She even befriends newcomer Randa, an Arab whose head-covering and strict religious code instantly brand her as a loser in the school's Darwinian social wars.

We are wary of Kimberly's kindness and commitment to "foster a spirit of togetherness among the school's multicultural students." Our suspicions are validated when she instructs the bewildered newcomer on social survival at Roxbury.

She advises Randa that people will laugh at her because of "that thing on your head," then provides a list of racial ranking, with Arabs at the bottom. "Although, I've never seen you blow anybody up," Kimberly adds sincerely.

She offers a symbiotic relationship to the new girl because "if you hang with me, you'll run into boys you otherwise wouldn't — and when I'm standing next to you, I'll look more attractive."

Soon Kimberly and her best friend, Brittany (Elisabeth Harnois), are indoctrinating Randa on the finer points of bulimia, pornography and teen sex.

We're provided a clue to Kimberly's character (or lack thereof) in the form of her daddy (James Woods). At his all-time smarmiest, Woods plays a wealthy, foulmouthed businessman who spews anti-Semitic venom at the dinner table with his belly bulging out of a bathrobe or slouches on the couch, engaging in phone sex.

Kimberly's absentee mother may be worse. She calls to say happy birthday, then apologizes for mistaking Kimberly's age and misspelling her name on the card.

Yet despite her Borgia-like family, Kimberly's soullessness dissipates any audience sympathies.

Knowing she's up to something, but not sure what, we watch Kimberly use sex as her weapon of mass destruction with boys, a teacher and even a TV newswoman (Jane Krakowski) who is doing a "harmless human-interest piece" on the school.

The reporter soon gets a real scoop when Kimberly and friends accuse a teacher of sexual misconduct. The teacher isn't guilty — technically. But naughty thoughts of Kimberly lead him to coax his clueless wife into a tight little gray skirt suspiciously similar to the girl's school uniform.

When the motive for Kimberly's scheming is revealed, it's disappointingly trivial. And the hypercatastrophic repercussions of her actions force the film to careen wildly just as it ends.

"Pretty Persuasion" should come with a warning for parents. It depicts many of their worst nightmares about what kids are up to behind closed bedroom doors. After seeing this film, you'll want to keep those doors wide open.