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Pretty Persuasion
Metascore
45 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 29 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 29
  3. Negative: 9 out of 29
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  1. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: David Gilmour
    88
    It is also extremely well-written in the fearless way of a smarty pants on a roll in the university cafeteria.
  2. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    80
    This is a very funny film about a creepy, excruciatingly lonely world.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    An obscene, misanthropic go-for-broke satire, Pretty Persuasion is so gleefully nasty that the fact that it was even made and released is astonishing. Much of it is also extremely funny.
  4. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    70
    It's too bad that the satire is not more pointed, because Pretty Persuasion is outrageously funny in short blasts, mainly thanks to James Woods at his most gleefully depraved.
  5. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    70
    The comedy is brutal and paper thin, but that is less bothersome than the ending of the movie, which abruptly changes its tone.
  6. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    67
    There is such a thoroughgoing nastiness to the plot and dialogue that the film almost achieves a level of buoyancy.
  7. Empire
    Reviewed by: Dan Jolin
    60
    A teenie "To Die For" whose flaws are superceded by a complex, compelling turn from Evan Rachel Wood.
  8. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    60
    In a star-making performance, Evan Rachel Wood stars as essentially a younger version of Nicole Kidman's media-age femme fatale from "To Die For," an aspiring 15-year-old actress who hides a sharp, calculating mind behind a façade of vapid, chattering self-absorption.
  9. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    50
    So the movie is daring, and well-acted. Yet it isn't very satisfying, because the serious content keeps breaking through the soggy plot intended to contain it.
  10. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    50
    So exploitative and misogynistic that its last-minute dramatic turns and pleas for tolerance and understanding come off as manipulative as its heroine.
  11. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    50
    Only partly successful.
  12. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Janice Page
    50
    Isn't so much awful as it is self-conscious, overdone, shallow, and just not up to the level of its star.
  13. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    50
    Pretty Persuasion reminds me of a half-hour TV series that has a great pilot episode, then falls apart in subsequent installments. Movies need to grow and change to keep things interesting; this one is stagnant.
  14. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Jeremy Mathews
    50
    Kills itself with unrestrained negativism, but almost resuscitates itself with some great comedy.
  15. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    50
    If the resulting film doesn't work equally well at all levels, Wood (who starred in "Thirteen") gives an astonishing performance that pushes it most of the way there.
  16. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joanne Kaufman
    50
    Ms. Wood, who made a potent impression two years ago as a naïve adolescent led astray by a sophisticated and psychotic classmate in "Thirteen," has the whip hand this time around -- and she's wonderfully persuasive. She needs a movie to match.
    All this publication's reviews
  17. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    50
    Tries to be an audacious, irreverent satire about youth culture like "Lord Love a Duck," but most of the laughs get strangled at birth by the uncertainty of Siega's tone.
  18. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ben Kenigsberg
    40
    A high school send-up more gleefully incorrect than "Heathers" and considerably less articulate than "Election," Pretty Persuasion is a hand grenade lobbed at no place in particular.
  19. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Melissa Levine
    40
    A film that aspires to join the company of its predecessors--smart, funny satires that skewered the hypocrisy and cruelty of high school life. But it won't. For starters, Pretty Persuasion commits a fatal error: It forgets to side with the students.
  20. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    40
    An exercise in bad taste that takes itself just seriously enough to be offensive.
  21. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Allison Benedikt
    38
    Not funny because it's not true.
  22. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    38
    Sets out to be a social critique but settles for smug disdain.
  23. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    38
    Another high school vixen movie, this one with a potty mouth (the vixen) and pretensions of social commentary (the movie), Pretty Persuasion brings to mind a number of other titles, all better.
  24. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    30
    Most of Halim's script is a laundry list of offensive remarks that he no doubt means to serve as titillating spoof, but none of it's funny or even the least bit provocative, just offensive.
  25. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Curt Fields
    30
    It just rings false, like having Hannibal Lecter take up vegetarianism.
  26. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    20
    A devastatingly dishonest, tough look at teenage life.
  27. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    16
    The movie wants so badly to be mentioned in the same breath as "Heathers" or "Election" that it's not even funny. Really, I mean it, this charred-black comedy is not even funny.
  28. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Peter Debruge
    0
    There's enough estrogen gone awry in this bitchy teen comedy to make "Mean Girls" look like a Disney after-school special.
  29. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    0
    The disingenuous attempt to give the tawdry story some kind of social import only makes the tinny caricatures more insincere, while his erotic display of 15-year-old girls isn't a satire of a sexualized culture, it's just dirty.
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.9 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 18 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 11
  3. Negative: 2 out of 11
  1. ChadS.
    5
    At first, "Pretty Persuasion" seems like a "Heathers"-wanna-be. In both films, the protagonist wants to be a good person. But when we arrive at the final scene, it's hard not to see this mean-spirited teen comedy as a sort of "In the Company of [Teenage Girls]". Kimberly is Chad(Aaron Eckhart in the Neal LaBute film) in a skirt. What happens to Randa(Adi Schnall) is too heavy-handed; too serious a truth about Muslim attitudes towards their girls who besmirch the family's "good" name, in a film that uses the Arab teen as color. And what Brittany(Elisabeth Harnois) performs at a school-play rehearsal is about as unlikely as Meg Ryan's fake orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally". It's very unpleasant. "Pretty Persuasion" also needlessly tells its story in a non-linear fashion, and trades the world of teenage girls for the world of courtrooms to the detriment of the "teen film"-genre it's trying to skewer.… Full Review »
  2. ArielG.
    9
    Very sharp satire about high school life in these current times. Evan Rachel Wood shone in her dual role as the good girl and the schemer. There are parts in this movie which may offend some racial groups, so be wary. Offensive language and simulated sex scenes are featured occasionally - Don't watch it with your parents, unless you want to cringe with embarassment. But do see it if you're a fan of biting comedies and satirical high school movies like Election.… Full Review »
  3. JaneA.
    10
    It's Clever and Funny and Harsh. Well-written. Incisive look at highschool and contemporary attitudes.
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