A humane movie about some of the most inhumane people in literary history; in its own way, that's a pretty remarkable achievement, though it never quite manages to argue why it's taking this approach.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 23, 2024

A splendidly beautiful film, yet totally useless. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jul 5, 2022

You do wonder sometimes whether it is not a little too sweetly fetching for its own good. No one could have accused the Frears film of that.

| Aug 18, 2021

In every way inferior to Stephen Frears's film.

| Aug 18, 2021

Valmont, then, proves a mixed blessing; a sumptuous treat for the eyes, a quiet disappointment for the mind.

| Aug 18, 2021

Milos Forman's film is a mere confection in comparison to Stephen Frear's one, but in the way that confections can give real entertainment.

| Jul 20, 2018

An unqualified dud.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 9, 2015

Colin Firth's Valmont is pleasant, a dreadful thing to say about one of literature's most magnetic seducers.

| Feb 9, 2015

Valmont is a superb piece of craftsmanship, impeccable in every detail from lighting to costuming, but as a work of art it remains tentative and blurred.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 9, 2015

Milos Forman and Jean-Claude Carriere, while fiddling with the plot of this deliciously nasty tale, have studiously embalmed its spirit.

| Feb 9, 2015

The results are too pretty and well acted to be a total washout, but the fascination with evil and power that gives the novel intensity is virtually absent; what remains is mainly petty malice and mild cynicism.

| Feb 9, 2015

Directed by Milos Forman, this film is livelier, more absorbing, and generally better acted than Dangerous Liaisons, which arrived a year ago. But it runs out of inspiration long before it runs out of plot twists.

| Feb 9, 2015

Insufficiently racy in tone as well as pacing, this accomplished but bland costume drama is Dangerous Liaisons' poor cousin.

| Feb 9, 2015

The effect is like an ermine violin: It is beautiful to look at, but it doesn't play.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 9, 2015

The anachronistic brio which distinguishes Forman's style is in pleasurable evidence, the approach to the subject is very much his own, and it's worth seeing if you forget all about the original.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 9, 2015

Because there are no characters animating his panorama, all this serves to prove is that though Forman's movie is broader than Frears', it is also shallower.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 9, 2015

Valmont plays like a period sex romp, its concerns reduced to the level of who sleeps with whom and who gets dumped.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 9, 2015

While Frears's is truer to the calculating spirit of the book and has the showier cast, Forman's has greater human interest and the more heartfelt performances.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 9, 2015

What keeps the film interesting, if not riveting, is the generally on target casting and resulting topnotch interpretations.

| May 20, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 30, 2007