Movie · 1989 · Drama, Romance · 2h 17m · R · English
Curator score: 3.7/10 (22.9K ratings)
As unpredictable as love itself.
Overview
Set in Baroque France, a scheming widow and her lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman. The lover, Valmont, bets that he can seduce her, even though she is an honorable woman. If he wins, he can have his lover to do as he will. However, in the process of seducing the married woman, Valmont falls in love.
Ratings
Curator score: 3.7/10
IMDb: 7.0/10
Letterboxd: 3.42/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 50%
Metacritic: 55
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
Miloš Forman
Production
Timothy Burrill Productions, Renn Productions
Cast
Colin Firth, Annette Bening, Meg Tilly, Fairuza Balk, Siân Phillips, Jeffrey Jones, Henry Thomas, Fabia Drake, T. P. McKenna, Isla Blair, Ian McNeice, Aleta Mitchell, Ronald Lacey, Vincent Schiavelli, Sandrine Dumas, Sébastien Floche, Antony Carrick, Murray Gronwall, Alain Frérot, Daniel Laloux
Curator Review
Verdict
A polished, witty costume drama with strong performances and a lighter, more playful tone than many viewers expect from this story. It’s worth watching if you enjoy elegant period intrigue, verbal sparring, and morally compromised romance, but it can feel less incisive and less devastating than the best adaptations of the material.
Best for
fans of period dramas with sexual politics and social games
viewers who prefer a more amiable, romantic take on dangerous seduction plots
people interested in Miloš Forman’s lighter touch and ensemble casting
audiences who enjoy lush costumes, letters, and courtly manipulation
Skip if
you want the most psychologically brutal or formally razor-sharp version of this story
you dislike aristocratic melodrama and manipulative romance
you need a fast-moving plot with modern emotional realism
you prefer your period dramas to be bleak, severe, or overtly tragic
Overview
Valmont is the more playful cousin in the dangerous-liaisons family tree. Miloš Forman leans into wit, charm, and social performance, giving the intrigue a breezier surface even as the story remains fundamentally about power, vanity, and emotional damage. The result is less savage than some viewers may expect, but often more inviting and surprisingly funny.
Worth noting
Colin Firth makes for an unusually appealing libertine, and Annette Bening brings intelligence and bite to the widow’s schemes. The film’s pleasures are in the performances, the letters, the flirtation, and the way desire becomes another social weapon. It’s a handsome production that understands seduction as theater.
Bottom line
What it loses in venom, it gains in accessibility. Some may miss a sharper sense of danger, but if you’re open to a more romantic and less punitive adaptation, Valmont has enough elegance and mischief to stand on its own.
Top Letterboxd reviews
sarah (3.5★) · 391 likes
cruel intentions (1999) is for the teens.
dangerous liaisons (1988) is for the intellectuals.
valmont (1989) is for the sluts.
noen (3.5★) · 270 likes
Love born in the secret admiration between two ruined souls who recognize themselves in the art of destruction. They wound the world together for tenderness alone could never satisfy the hunger that consumed them. To hate side by side, to corrupt and be corrupted in return, to fall hand in hand toward the nothingness while believing it a throne, that is the purest form of doomed devotion, for some hearts are unfit for gentle love and can only give each other the desperate exhilaration of undoing oneself side by side.
Gaines (4★) · 192 likes
Colin Firth falling comically or jumping into a big pool of water, fully dressed, then walking out soaking wet while seducing the heroine and the audience, is a fine tradition in motion picture.
britt (2.5★) · 158 likes
i think this is the most i’ve ever seen colin smile in a movie
DNA cinephile🏳️🌈 (4★) · 81 likes
Valmont. 1989. Directed by Milos Forman.
Valmont is, in my opinion, a more amiable version of Dangerous Liaisons. The lead cast (Colin Firth, Annette Bening, Meg Tily, & Fairuza Balk) are splendid and convincing. This is like a fine trip to the opera. Sian Phillips adds strength to an already solid cast. The script is comical and the pacing is on par with the story. Consequently, there isn’t a dull moment.
For a more emotionally earnest period romance about betrayal, transformation, and uneasy reconciliation.
Topics
period drama, romantic intrigue, costume drama, courtly satire, seduction, moral ambiguity, 18th century, ensemble acting, lush production design, witty dialogue