Cruel Intentions (1999) on Netflix
Kathryn Merteuil wants revenge on the boyfriend who left her for Cecile Caldwell. Her stepbrother Sebastian Valmont accepts her wager and pursues Annette Hargrove, the headmaster's daughter.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.8/10222,663 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes53%
Trailer
Plot summary
Sebastian Valmont and his stepsister Kathryn Merteuil are wealthy teenagers at a Manhattan prep school, and both are practiced at getting what they want from other people. Bored with women who offer no resistance, Sebastian takes on a challenge: Annette Hargrove, the new headmaster's daughter, has said in a magazine article that she will not have sex until she is married. Kathryn is angry that her ex-boyfriend Court Reynolds left her and began dating Cecile Caldwell, and she proposes a wager. If Sebastian seduces Annette before the school term starts, Kathryn will finally sleep with him; if he loses, she takes his vintage Jaguar. She also wants his help in humiliating Court through Cecile.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cruel Intentions (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Roughly a tenth of the film's entire budget went toward licensing a single song, The Verve's Bitter Sweet Symphony, just for the closing scene.
- That song carried baggage: a lawsuit by the Rolling Stones' then-manager over an uncleared orchestral sample had already stripped The Verve of all royalties and moved the credit to Jagger and Richards.
- The film's producer said the crew auditioned around 200 other songs trying to find a substitute before deciding the expensive license was worth paying for.
- The movie's working title was a pun that never made it to release: star Sarah Michelle Gellar revealed years later that it was originally called Cruel Inventions.
