Stephen Frears directs a top-notch movie adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' novel about several manipulative Rococo-era French aristocrats. Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil (Glenn Close) is a seductively evil character who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Vicomte Sebastien de Valmont (John Malkovich) knows how to trick the peasants into thinking that he's a good guy, despite his vampiric intentions. Madame Marie de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Le Chevalier Raphael Danceny (Keanu Reeves) may be only products of this vile society, but they are practically helpless to do anything about it. Maybe it's a little strange to see Keanu Reeves in a movie like this, but he makes the best of his role. All in all, "Dangerous Liaisons" is a movie that you can't afford to miss. Perfect.

In pre-Revolutionary France, the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) plots revenge against Bastide who aims to wed young virgin Cécile de Volanges (Uma Thurman). Merteuil tries to convince the Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) to seduce Cécile but Valmont is busy seducing the married Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer) famous for her virtue. Merteuil offers a night with her as reward for Cécile's seduction.

It is a period piece alive with sexual tension. It is deliciously seductive. It is not old and dusty. Rather it is energetic and modern. The sexual manipulations and deceptive games give a greater edge to any modern romantic melodrama. Close and Malkovich are terrifically corrupt. Pfeiffer is excellent in the less showy virtuous role. Thurman plays the innocent ingénue. The acting is all top notch. The production is first rate directed by Stephen Frears.

With one look she can break your heart. With one look she plays every part. She can make your sad heart sing. With one look you'll know all you need to know. Those paraphrased lyrics from "Sunset Boulevard" describe the performance of one of the greatest actresses of the past 30 years.

Glenn Close probably never got closer to the Oscar than with this delicious costume drama with massive comic overtones as a widowed French noblewoman who, several decades before the French Revolution, utilizes her social position to destroy lives amongst the nobles around her. There are two key scenes to this devilish woman's love for the game, here destroying the innocence of two young virginal noblewomen (Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman) by having them both seduced by the most vile nobleman since the Marquis de Sade. John Malkovich, already Close's ex-lover and ultimate libertine, is given the challenge to be the first not only to deflower Pfeiffer but to make her fall in love with him then break her heart in the process. The first scene is when Close reads a letter from Thurman, at first so serious, then smiling like the Grinch as she realizes how her evil plot is succeeding, later grinning like the Chesire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland" as she gets out of her carriage then rushes to comfort the heart-broken young lady.

Pretty much a perfect film, this is human manipulation at its most sinister. The heart can't be cured for an innocent young lady, and what ends up happening destroys many lives. Close is pretty much the whole film, her bosom wrapped tightly in those corsets, and looking absolutely ravishing. If there was ever a Norma Desmond to be, Close assured herself that role with this movie which ironically followed her other "bad lady" role, Alex Forrest of "Fatal Attraction". As for Malkovich, he is an odd choice to play a man of such sexual desire, but he really does pull it off, and Pfeiffer is heartbreaking as the woman who tries so hard to keep herself pure but is doomed to her own growing womanhood.

The one mistake in the cast is Keanu Reeves, laughable here (as he was in the otherwise wonderful "Bram Stoker's Dracula") as he recites the lines as if he was taking elocution lessons on the set. Fortunately, his role is rather minor, the most of the time being the game of cat and mouse (or mouse and cat) for Close and Malkovich where you know that the winner will also loose. Deserving mention in smaller roles are Swoosie Kurtz as Thurman's mother and veteran actress Mildred Natwick as the grande dame of the countryside French social scene. The peace de resistance is the end, one which seems to take forever to unfold, but leaves a satisfying sense of irony in the viewer's head. It took more than 20 years for the magnetic Close to return to the Oscar race, but when she did, it was one worth the wait, her cross-dressing butler from "Albert Nobbs".