The Seduction: sex and power games in 18th-century France on HBO Max

The young Isabelle Dassonville is seduced by the Vicomte de Valmont, who makes her fall in love and asks her to marry him. The girl is unaware that he is an unscrupulous aristocratic libertine, who conquered and then abandoned her for pure amusement. The marriage was, in fact, a farce solely to take advantage of her, and now, expelled from the convent and dishonored in the eyes of society, Isabelle furiously presents herself at the home of Madame de Rosemonde, aunt of such a scoundrel. What was supposed to be a plea for justice, however, transforms into an unexpected alliance: Rosemonde, struck by the determination of her almost-niece, decides to take her under her wing and transform her into one of the most powerful courtesans in Paris.

In The Seduction, known in France by its original title Merteuil, Isabelle de Merteuil's ascent into the world of pre-revolutionary French aristocracy thus begins. Determined to take revenge on Valmont and the Comte de Gercourt, another nobleman who humiliated her, the young woman learns to use her beauty and intelligence as lethal weapons in a society that denied women any other form of power. But the price of revenge might prove higher than imagined.

The Seduction: Again?

For those who love period films and classic literary themes, the names will certainly be familiar: created by Jean-Baptiste Delafon and directed by Jessica Palud, this six-episode miniseries represents the first French-language Original from HBO and is configured as a prequel to the famous epistolary novel Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, published in 1782 and adapted multiple times for both the big and small screen.

A work that has already seen innumerable adaptations, from Stephen Frears' most famous cinematic version in 1988 with Glenn Close and John Malkovich, to the Nineties teen-drama update of Cruel Intentions (1999). The declared ambition of this new operation is to re-read the figure of the Marquise de Merteuil in a feminist key, here young and not yet consumed by the cynicism that will characterize her in the written pages. An origin story that transforms what in previous texts was a glacial and manipulative villain into a wounded woman, fighting to carve out a space for herself in a cynical and ruthless patriarchal society. An approach that on paper seems fascinating, but which in its overall execution shows several structural flaws.

From a staging perspective, The Seduction is nothing short of impeccable. The cinematography precisely conveys the decadent luxury of 18th-century aristocracy, with meticulous costumes and set design that recreate with rich detail those sumptuous salons, balls, and secret chambers where anything can happen. Filming took place in authentic castles, and the historical reconstruction is the true strength of the operation, with a truly captivating aesthetic result.

At the Heart of Danger

Director Jessica Palud – already known for the dramatic films Revenir (2019) and Maria (2024), the latter a biopic on the life of Maria Schneider – directs with a steady hand, effectively orchestrating the exchanges of glances and power dynamics that unfold in Parisian salons, in that mix of deception and eroticism that, after all, characterizes the approximately four hours of total viewing. The skillful use of lighting underscores the poisoned beauty of a world on the eve of its self-destruction, with opulence seemingly clouding everyone. It is no coincidence that Isabelle's arrival in high society, of humble origins and seeking revenge for the treatment she received, shatters acquired certainties, initiating a series of increasingly paradoxical and cruel intrigues, where hatred and love coexist more than ever in an emotional battle without quarter. 

The main problem lies in the actual management of the pace, which after a promising start tends to flatten into redundancy and monotony of situations, with sex increasingly taking center stage in subtly suggestive sequences, where the protagonists, especially female, are not afraid to bare themselves. Anamaria Vartolomei, fresh from the success of The Count of Monte Cristo (2024), embodies the young Isabelle with an intense stage presence but not always up to the ambitions that such a role demanded. Vincent Lacoste plays Valmont with the right dose of ambiguity, but his character risks being overshadowed by that female predominance, which also sees a splendid Diane Kruger, in the elegant guise of Madame de Rosemonde, constantly stealing the scene when she appears before the camera.

But between courageous yet unbalanced narrative choices and a reiteration of seemingly endless romantic whirlwinds, The Seduction risks dragging on more wearily than expected to its dramatic epilogue, accompanied moreover by a modern version of Hallelujah that clashes, intentionally or not, with the historical context and what has been seen until then.