The Cruel Intentions reboot just doesn’t click

At first glance, Prime Video’s Cruel Intentions (a loose, modern-day adaptation of the beloved 1999 film of the same name) has all the familiar elements going for it: There’s sex, creepy step-siblings, nighttime dips in the pool, cocaine stashed in a cross necklace, and even a catchy “Bittersweet Symphony” remix. But all the nostalgia in the world can’t make up for how utterly meh this eight-episode drama feels in comparison to the Sarah Michelle Gellar vehicle from a quarter century ago.

Created by Phoebe Fisher and Sara Goodman (the minds behind Prime’s I Know What You Did Last Summer series), Cruel Intentions is set at the elite Manchester College in Washington, D.C., and centers on ultra-privileged step-sibs Caroline (Sarah Catherine Hook) and Lucien (Zac Burgess) and their classmates. There’s sweet and innocent Annie (Savannah Lee Smith), who’s also the U.S. Vice President’s daughter; CeCe (Sara Silver), who talks a mile-per-minute and worships the ground Caroline walks on; frat boys Blaise and Scott (portrayed by John Harlan Kim and Khobe Clarke, respectively); and fervently anti-Greek-life activist Beatrice (Brooke Lena Johnson). Sean Patrick Thomas is the film’s sole returning cast member—except here, he’s tackling Professor Hank Chadwick.

Minus the slightly older characters and heavy focus on Greek life, the show more or less follows the same premise as the ’99 movie (a retelling of Dangerous Liaisons, which was itself an adaptation of the 1782 French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses): Awful step-siblings with burning sexual tension make a bet in order to maintain their reputations and power. Caroline, who’s determined to get Annie to pledge for her sorority, asks the extremely horny Lucien to seduce the VP’s daughter in exchange for the one girl he’s never been able to have: her. “Me, the way you’ve always wanted, for up to an hour” doesn’t quite hit the same as Sarah Michelle Gellar’s iconic “you can put it anywhere” line, but it deserves a couple of points for effort.

Honestly, the Caroline/Lucien/Annie triangle itself is…fine? Cruel Intentions’ biggest problem is that it just really, really doesn’t work as an ensemble show. Instead of spending ample time developing Lucien and Annie’s relationship and getting viewers invested in them, the series gets bogged down by a million unnecessary storylines. The Greek life stuff starts to drag by the second episode, and frankly, most of the drama is pretty boring. (Are sororities too exclusionary? Should frats be banned? Who cares? Get back to the juicy stuff!) Plenty of screen time is also spent on CeCe and Professor Chadwick’s relationship, as well as the complicated dynamic between Blaise and Scott, but both storylines are trope-y, predictable, and strangely out of step with the main premise. All of the characters are clearly supposed to be nods to the ’99 version (for example, CeCe is the counterpart of Selma Blair’s Cecile), but it feels like half of them got lost on their way to Gossip Girl and are just wandering around here in confusion.

Who exactly is this show for? It doesn’t seem like even the writers know. The series plays it safe in some ways (“Who’s the f-slur now?!” is a word-for-word line), yet goes much further than the film in other ways. If the creepy step-sibling stuff isn’t enough to make you squirm, there’s also abortion jokes, false sexual harassment claims, and something in the final episode (you’ll know when you get to it) that’s so utterly horrifying, even a three-hour-long shower won’t be enough to get rid of the grimy feeling. For all of the ways the film version hasn’t aged well, it was also somewhat progressive in that it explored sex through a feminist lens, with Kathryn’s “I’m the Marcia fucking Brady of the Upper East Side” monologue still holding up today. The 2024 show, on the other hand, isn’t particularly interested in getting deep about, well, much of anything. If you squint, it might have something to say about class. (“You smell like ivory soap and desperation. You’ve been out fucking a poor person.”) 

But here’s the thing: Despite all of those reservations, the series is still very watchable in a guilty pleasure sort of way. In fact, it’s annoyingly addictive at some points. The young cast is clearly talented, and, much like all The CW stars that came before them, they do their best to make the ridiculous dialogue and batshit storylines digestible. Sarah Catherine Hook is exceptional as the ruthless Caroline, even if the writing doesn’t do her justice. Savannah Lee Smith, who’s fresh off a run as Monet in the Gossip Girl reboot, is also a standout: Annie is the total opposite of Monet, and Smith’s stellar performance here proves her range as an actor. 

Cruel Intentions isn’t a total waste of time, but the overall concept just doesn’t work very well as a show. And that’s hardly surprising. This is literally the third attempt at turning the ’99 film into a TV project. Fox first tried to make a prequel series in late 1999, only for it to be canceled. That was then retooled into a direct-to-video film, Cruel Intentions 2 (which was followed by Cruel Intentions 3), and it was so poorly received that nobody seems to even remember it existed. In 2015, NBC picked up a new Cruel Intentions pilot, which was set to revolve around Sebastian (Ryan Philippe) and Annette’s (Reese Witherspoon) teenage son, with Gellar confirmed to reprise her role as Kathryn. However, it never went to series. Something clearly isn’t clicking. 

Ultimately, it might be time for Hollywood execs to put this whole dream of a successful Cruel Intentions franchise to bed and just let Les Liaisons Dangereuses finally, finally rest. After all, it’s been more than 242 years.

Cruel Intentions premieres November 21 on Prime Video