Word: merteuil
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...script is almost clinically clear about why the Marquise de Merteuil (Annette Bening) and the Vicomte de Valmont (Colin Firth) embark on a campaign to debauch a 15-year-old virgin, Cecile de Volanges (Fairuza Balk). The older woman is gripped by temporary insanity because she loves the man who intends to marry the adolescent. The vicomte too has his excuses. He is possessed by a passionate nature, the ill effects of which, it is implied, are also temporary. Give the kid some time, and he will probably turn out to be an admirable citizen. Indeed, his second amorous campaign...
...wrote with feathers. So this film's first images should set the old bosses spinning in their mausoleums. A gentleman's peruke is affixed, a lady's bosom powdered. But this gentleman, the Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich), is an icy defiler, and this lady, the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close), secretes contempt under her frozen smile. Among the French aristocracy just before the Revolution, she is the stage manager of affections and deceptions, he the lickerish snake who literally hisses at his adversaries. Their cruel games will lead them to peek through keyholes, swipe bedroom keys, purloin letters, ruin...