Sunday, August 1, 2021

The Last Seduction (1994)

IMDb plot summary: A devious sexpot steals her husband's drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.
Directed by John Dahl. Starring Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, and Michael Raysses.

This has all the earmarks of your traditional femme fatale neo-noir, with one exception I can't quite explain: I LOVE this character. Don't get me wrong, she's a terrible person, but it's just so fascinating to watch her work and see what she wants and how she hopes to get it. Roger Ebert said in his review that the film "knows how much we enjoy seeing a character work boldly outside the rules," and I think that captures it perfectly. She has so few qualms and is played so perfectly by Linda Fiorentino that it's kind of an exhilarating ride. It's hard to feel much sympathy for the men in her life she's taking advantage of either, with their mean streaks and wobbly ethics. There is an unfortunate bit of transphobia toward the end that comes out of nowhere and has no bearing on the plot, but it's still something I wish the movie didn't contain, as I found myself kind of captivated by the rest of it.

How it entered my Flickchart:
The Last Seduction > Fahrenheit 451
The Last Seduction < Anna Karenina
The Last Seduction > Fantasia 2000
The Last Seduction > Waitress
The Last Seduction > Being There
The Last Seduction < Jesus Christ Superstar
The Last Seduction < The Ten Commandments (1956)
The Last Seduction < Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book
The Last Seduction < Nerve
The Last Seduction < Gentleman's Agreement
The Last Seduction < The Front Page (1974)
The Last Seduction > 13th
Final spot: #958 out of 3413, or 72%.

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