Cruel Intentions - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Cruel Intentions is a 1999 American drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

starring Sarah Michelle Gellar

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...

, Ryan Phillippe

Ryan Phillippe

Matthew Ryan Phillippe , better known as Ryan Phillippe, is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late 1990s starring in a string of films, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, and 54...

, Reese Witherspoon

Reese Witherspoon

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon , better known as Reese Witherspoon, is an American actress and film producer. Witherspoon landed her first feature role as the female lead in the film The Man in the Moon in 1991; later that year she made her television acting debut, in the cable movie Wildflower...

, and Selma Blair

Selma Blair

Selma Blair is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. She has performed in feature films including Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, The Sweetest Thing, Hellboy, The Fog, Purple Violets and Hellboy II: The Golden Army...

. The film is an adaptation of the 18th-century French epistolary novel

Epistolary novel

An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic "documents" such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use...

Les Liaisons dangereuses
Les Liaisons dangereuses
Les Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782....

by Laclos and is set among wealthy teenagers living in modern New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

The film started as an independent film

Independent film

An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

with a small budget, and was later picked up by Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

. It was released on March 5, 1999 and was followed by two direct-to-video

Direct-to-video

Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...

films: a prequel, Cruel Intentions 2
Cruel Intentions 2
Cruel Intentions 2 is the 2000 American comedy-drama prequel to Cruel Intentions and was released direct-to-video. It was written and directed by Roger Kumble, who was also responsible for the first film. The film stars Robin Dunne, Sarah Thompson, Amy Adams, and Keri Lynn Pratt...

, and a sequel, Cruel Intentions 3
Cruel Intentions 3
Cruel Intentions 3 is a 2004 American teen drama film directed by Scott Ziehl and released direct-to-video in 2004. Despite its name, the movie has almost no relation to the previous films in the series, except for the shared themes and the lead character in this film, Cassidy Merteuil, who is a...

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The wealthy and popular Kathryn Merteuil (Gellar) takes the sheltered and naïve Cecile Caldwell (Blair) under her wing, promising to turn Cecile into a model student.