Pretty Persuasion

Name: Pretty Persuasion
Director: Marcos Siega
Released: 2005

Synopsis

A 15-year-old girl incites chaos among her friends and a media frenzy when she accuses her drama teacher of sexual harassment.

80
L.A. Weekly
This is a very funny film about a creepy, excruciatingly lonely world.
80
The New York Times
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.
70
Los Angeles Times
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.
60
The A.V. Club
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.
50
Film Threat
Kills itself with unrestrained negativism, but almost resuscitates itself with some great comedy.
50
New York Post
So exploitative and misogynistic that its last-minute dramatic turns and pleas for tolerance and understanding come off as manipulative as its heroine.
40
Variety
An exercise in bad taste that takes itself just seriously enough to be offensive.
40
Village Voice
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.