Quit possibly the 2000s version of Heathers or Election and to a lesser extent the teenage version of To Die For with Nicole Kidman. Pretty Persuasion is a cynical and darkly twisted teenage comedy, with a razor sharp plot! This film is nothing short of brilliant, Evan Rachel Wood (who proved audiences she was talented alongside Holly Hunter in Thirteen) was a perfect choice for the role of Kimberly Joyce a trash talking, acid tongued, manipulative and devious teenager who is determined to win the role of Anne Frank in a school play.

Hoping she will achieve fame through her role as Anne, but after Kimberly's naive, best friend, Brittany Wells gets the role, Kimberly incites chaos in her Beverly Hills community by accusing her English teacher of sexual harassment. Kimberly also asks her best friends (Brittany) and Randa, a shy and harmless Arab girl to accuse him of sexual harassment...to make her unbelievable story, believable. But little do they know Kimberly has her own agenda to pretty much everything.

Pretty Persuasion is a tough and cynical genre film with a twist, taking the female high-school satire further and deeper than such predecessors as Heathers, Mean Girls and Election. Skander Halim's sharp satire employs the most sexually explicit dialog to be heard in an American teen movie, indie or Hollywood, over the past decade. When a father addresses his daughter as a "dirty little whore who gets it up her ass", you know you are witnessing a feature that many viewers will perceive as shocking, excessive, and totally jaw dropping. The whole movie may be "too much" for the more conservative public.

Starting of as a black comedy, Kimberly is a girl beyond her years, similar to Tuesday Weld in Pretty Poison, that boy Sammy in the novel "What Makes Sammy Run?" and Tracy Flick in Election. In looks and conduct, Kimberly may be a younger version (like I said above) of the equally amoral and immoral TV weather reporter Nicole Kidman played in Gus Van Sant's underestimated satire, To Die For. You'll either be offended by this film, or love it death and me, well, I love it to death, although teen mean girl films are getting predictable these days, Pretty Persuasion however changes that!! Especially with the perfect performances to top it off, Evan Rachel Wood is an amazing acctress, and well deserves an Oscar someday.

Overall, Pretty Persuasion is a perfect black comedy teen film, and certainly not for the light hearted, you've been warned, and it's not your average teen comedy. But, pure perfection.

7.5/10

Pretty Persuasion Reviewed by Sam Osborn

Rating: 2 out of 4

Let's get one thing straight, I was not in any way offended by Pretty Persuasion. Many critics have disparaged the film for its aggressive subject matter, but I simply didn't find the film to be the least bit entertaining. I rarely take offense at the subject matter of a film, as long as it is necessary to the proper telling of the film's story. With Pretty Persuasion, the so-called offensive material is quite imperative for the telling of the story. That's not to say however, that I enjoyed the story. Instead of striving for a slick, intelligent and provocative film, Pretty Persuasion lapses into cruelty and absurdly misaimed satire that rarely evokes more than the sound of crickets from the audience. It seems to want to reside in a Napoleon Dynamite-esquire world, where normality was a disease cured centuries ago. But don't hold your breath Napoleon fans, these aren't the quasi-lovable characters of middle America from the Sundance cult phenomenon, but precocious, snooty Beverly Hill caricatures that would rattle the nerves of even the vainest of Hollywood celebs. There are, of course, the film's delightful little moments of hilarious shock factor (take, for example, Kimberly's dialogue with her stepmother) and some strangely impressive performances, but the screenplay hits its balls so far into left field that most of us are left shaking our heads in disappointment.

The film follows the devious scheming of Kimberly Joyce (Evan Rachel Wood) through her early years of high school. Teaming up with her newfound Arab friend Randa Azzouni (Adi Schnall), and boyfriend stealing bombshell, Brittany Wells (Elisabeth Harnois), the three set out to come forward with accusations of sexual assault, incriminating their easily distracted History teacher, Mr. Anderson (Ron Livingston), whose interest in young ladies has even reached into his marriage to Grace Anderson (Selma Blaire). Picking up the story is the stunning, lesbian reporter Emily Klein (Jane Krakowsi). Back at home, Kimberly's father, played outrageously by James Woods, worries only over the reputation of his wholesale electronics business. Divorced and re-married with a girlfriend on the side, Woods' character wanders about the house in robe and boxers, spouting ignorant and prejudiced comments and insisting he isn't being a racist, but simply telling the truth. Woods' performance is nearly worth recommending the film for. He steals scenes like they were candy from a baby, demanding the audience's concentration and truly earning the attention comically. This is Woods at his best, however ignorant his dialogue may be.

Evan Rachel Wood has rapidly become my favorite young female actor in Hollywood. Coming off impressive work in Samuel Bayer's Green Day music video "When September Ends" with Jamie Bell, Wood continues with her streak of phenomenal independent work in Pretty Persuasion. Despite the film's creative crutch, Wood takes her virtuoso bitchy role by storm. It's a daring, provocative, and hilarious performance by one of the industry's most intriguing actresses.

But despite all my raving of the film's performances, I still find myself bored with Pretty Persuasion. There's great potential here to make an intelligent and provocative film that could possibly pose as a comic version of American Beauty. Instead, director Marcos Siega takes the low road for scatological and low-brow goofiness, sacrificing all that could be satisfyingly funny. We're left alienated by Siega's quasi-normal world and not allowed to re-connect. The jokes range from sexist to racist, attempting to offend any and all the least bit interested in women's rights. Instead of achieving satire, the film finds itself wallowing in gross immaturity.