Playing in the same world as “Dangerous Liaisons” (1988), “Cruel Intentions” (1999), and the original 1782 French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, HBO’s “The Seduction” is about a woman who’s manipulated out of her innocence and develops an insatiable craving for manipulation.
Directed by Jessica Palud, created and co-written by Jean-Baptiste Delafon alongside Palud and Gaëlle Bellan, this six-episode reimagining of the highly effective and popular story is a French HBO Original, arriving on November 14. If you’re expecting another mirror of the novel or any of the movies, this new series dodges the expected. Here, the lady Isabelle de Merteuil, her equally conniving lover Sébastien de Valmont, and the other well-known characters are reconfigured with many of their plotlines and traits broken up and redistributed.
If you came for the original’s letter-writing power plays, you’ll get those with a remix. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is about the treacherous duel between Merteuil and Valmont. In “The Seduction,” Anamaria Vartolomei’s Merteuil isn’t the elite player we know. She’s a young woman living in a convent who claws her way into prominence after Valmont (Vincent Lacoste) betrays her. At the same time, Diane Kruger portrays his aunt and her mentor-in-malice, Madame de Rosemonde. The series trades the established rules of manipulation and self-destructive cruelty for an examination of psychological wounds, cruel desires, trickery, and whether love can exist in the shadows of those ills.
Also starring Lucas Bravo as Comte de Gercourt, Noée Abita as Madame de Tourvel, Fantine Harduin as Cécile de Volanges, and Samuel Kircher as Chevalier Danceny, this French-language feast of machinations also interrogates the differences between two types of libertines—rule-breakers who lived for intellect, indulgence, and seduction, without society’s permission. It’s men versus women, and how the expectations of freedom and consequences differ for the two.
Yet, surprisingly, for a saga about the heat of scandalous behavior, the seductions themselves linger at room temperature. It’s strange, I can’t say “The Seduction” has any faults. It’s gorgeous—at one point, Valmont is framed between curtains with such exquisite lighting, he’s like an Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun painting. The acting is engaging, embodying the characters with a pretentious capriciousness fitting the aristocrats of that time, and the writing moves along. I’m struggling to define why this show didn’t spark for me, except I was bored.
That may be because very little seems to matter to these characters throughout most of the episodes. They play ruinous games of desire with other people’s lives, and yet I couldn’t feel the fire of their emotions or connect with the stakes in their schemes. The emotional narrative lacks pull, and the characters lack dimension. What more do they want or need other than sexual exploits and winning? Who are they outside of their games? [Picture a shrug here] I’m not sure.
The manipulations aren’t spiced with darkness; they aren’t ugly, or twisty, or even mischievous. They exist without a particular flavor. “The Seduction” is about vicious paybacks and the scandals of libertine life, but without visceral sexiness or savvy. However, near the end, there are questions about the true motives behind each character’s actions. That intrigue begins halfway through episode 5 and carries on until the final moments, where “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley plays anachronistically. At that point, the show works, and yet the edge of my seat was untested.
Perhaps “The Seduction” wants us to understand that desire without passion is emptiness, a conniver will ultimately outwit themselves, and regret is its own punishment. If so, then you, like Isabelle and Valmont, can pick your poison.
Whole season screened for review. Premieres on November 14 on HBO Max.