I've just watched "Valmont" and "Dangerous Liaisons" back to back and immediately after reading the book (I had seen "Dangerous Liaisons" before and loved it). I loved the book, and "Dangerous Liaisons" is good and reasonably faithful adaptation of it, and certainly close to its bitter spirit. "Valmont" is a much looser and poorer adaptation of the book, and thus deserved to lose out on its rival film. The acting in Valmont is pretty decent, particularly Colin Firth, but John Malkovitch (Valmont), Glenn Close (Merteuil) and Michelle Pfeiffer (de Tourvel) are much more convincing in Dangerous Liaisons. Only Fairuza Balk (Cecile) is more plausible in Valmont than her counterpart in Dangerous Liaisons (Una Thurman).
Review of Valmont
