Reviews

The crux of the Corporation is that corporations are amoral and therefore usually immoral. Unfortunately, this film is not so much a documentary as propaganda. The reporting is unbalanced. There is creepy, bad guy theme music for corporations. The whole thing comes off as a well meaning but amateur college production. Like Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 (but worse) the Corporation is therefore doomed to attract an audience of only people who already agree and to otherwise fall on deaf ears. (Moore is featured in this film, also Noam Chomsky.)

That said, I did learn a few things. The Corporation introduced me to Ray Anderson, the CEO reconfiguring his corporation for sustainable development. It drew my attention to the human rights issues surrounding the privatization of water rights. It made me reconsider, yet again, which brands of products I as a consumer (don't) want to buy. I considered whether business should ever market to children. And it amused me by psychoanalyzing the corporation (which the United States has granted the legal rights of an actual person) and diagnosing the corporation logically as a psychopath.

The only reason I rate this movie as generously as six stars ("forgettable, plus") is Annette Bening. Would that she had been cast in Dangerous Liaisons, another adaptation, released around the same time, of the same book. She brings a winning charm to the depraved Marquise de Merteuil that makes the character's personal and social power, as well as her motivations as an everywoman, much more believable and understandable.

Other than that, the story was absolutely botched by just how "freely adapted" it was from Chorderos de Laclos's brilliant novel. The screen writers changed the ending of de Laclos's story so much that the film becomes a vapid period romance. It loses everything that is so searing and moving about the book.

Madame de Tourvel was also badly written. Why Valmont finds her (in particular, among other women faithful to their husbands) so fascinating, remains a mystery. I like Meg Tilly, but, in this role, she is completely outshone by Michelle Pfeiffer, who also has a better written part, in Dangerous Liaisons.

The part of Cecile was better cast in Valmont with Fairiza Balk than in Dangerous Liaisons with Uma Thurman - principally because Balk appears to be and conveys the requisite vulnerability of a real fifteen-year-old. Uma Thurman, with all her presence and six feet of goddess glory, probably never could play fifteen!