[In the following review, Billson compliments Forman's casting choices in Valmont, describing the film as more plausible and enjoyable than Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons.]

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos is my own personal Bonfire of the Vanities. Given it to read at an impressionable age, I promptly concluded that “la Marquise de Merteuil, c'est moi,” and went on to develop that obsessive possessiveness reserved for one's favourite works of fiction. None shall touch! And if they must touch, they'd better bloody well get it right.

So if Bonfire fans were peeved at the casting of Tom Hanks as a Master of the Universe, imagine my chagrin when I saw Dangerous Liaisons. I am sorry, but I am not Glenn Close. I am prepared to admit she can sometimes appear quite handsome in a backwoodsy, frecklesome, big-boned sort of way, but an elegant, seductive, 18th-century French aristocrat she is definitely not.

I also had problems with the performances of John Malkovich (too much prancing and leering) and Michelle Pfeiffer (too gooey and cute). Not the least of my objections was that we were asked to believe that the sort of lecherous bozo Malky was playing would dump Michelle in return for exclusive grazing rights to Glenn. And one has yet to fathom why Stephen Frears is so highly regarded as a director, unless it's because his drab TV docu-drama approach hoodwinks indiscriminating filmgoers into thinking it's a purposeful cinematic style. The Grifters, for example, after a promising glimpse of split-screen choreography, degenerated into a good screenplay and a trio of great performances governed by a visual sensibility which made it all look like a more than usually gory episode of Casualty.

Even before anyone had seen Valmont, Milos Forman's rival version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, it had already been decided that Frears' film had scooped up all the honours in this Battle of the Laclos Adaptations, due either to misplaced jingoism (Frears' film, in fact, is classed as American, while Forman's is Anglo-French) or simply because it was first past the finishing-post.

But don't let yourself be carried away by the tide of critical opinion. According to the rule of guerrilla film-reviewing, the Forman film is far better and a lot more fun, and I don't mind being played by Annette Bening at all. It has worked to the actress's advantage that, after a delay of almost three years before the film's release, she now appears before us with all the interesting baggage of Beatty and The Grifters in tow. She is rare among American actresses in that she has an intelligent face with interesting creases, plus the most delightful hamster cheeks since Elizabeth McGovern.

Where Dangerous Liaisons was top-heavy with Christopher Hampton's fine theatrical words, Valmont presents itself in the guise of a light-hearted costume romp. Don't be fooled, though, by accusations of frivolity; the story's dark streak is still there, the difference between the two versions being that in Forman's you are credited with sufficient nous to dig it our for yourself.

The film's punchline is totally visual—a haunting glimpse of Bening's face, at sea in a revelling crowd, as she realises she has played and lost everything, followed by a hint that the younger generation has already been tainted by her relish for duplicity. This is much better than the somewhat perfunctory ending to Laclos' book, where the Marquise falls prey to a disfiguring bout of smallpox. (It was only after protracted argument with a friend that I realised that she was supposed to be a villainess—I had always seen her as a heroine—and that Valmont's final volte-face was a kind of redemption and not a despicable lily-livered cop-out.)

The other cast members are equally effective. Colin Firth as Valmont, Merteuil's partner-in-crime, strikes a perfect balance between the sham fevered glance and the genuine passion which sneaks in and takes over. Meg Tilly is virtue incarnate as the respectable married woman he sets out to seduce and ends up besotted with—a far more plausible Madame de Tourvel than was luscious, pouting Pfeiffer.

And here we actually get to see the cause of Merteuil's rancour—the humiliating slight that sets in motion her desire for revenge, and hence the plot: her scheme to have old flame Valmont deflower the young-bride-to-be of the bounder who has offended her. Much of the story's piquancy stems from the fact that Merteuil and Valmont are made for each other, but that, wrapped up in their role-playing, neither is prepared to admit it.

The bounder is played by none other than Jeffrey Jones, in a performance fit to rank alongside his classic film-stealing turns: as the school principal who tries in vain to catch superbrat Ferris playing truant in Ferris Bueller's Day Off; as the harassed paterfamilias who looks through his binoculars and exclaims “Birdies!” in Beetlejuice; and, momentarily lifting Forman's Amadeus onto another, more exhilarating plane, as Emperor Joseph II, complaining to Mozart that his music has “too many notes.”

Unfortunately for Jones, his big break role turned out to be the villain in Howard the Duck, which megaflopped, but J. J. completists will know what a treat is in store when I say that, in Valmont, he gets to fence and put on a wig.