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Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Allison Arnold Helminski, Chicago Tribune: Unlike Heathers and Election -- both brilliant satires because they exaggerate reality, magnify and darken the truth -- Pretty Persuasion is not funny because it's not true. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Wood's fine work is undermined by the movie it's trapped in, which feels like a rough draft of itself: Skander Halim's screenplay is unnecessarily twisty and gimmicky, and some of the teenspeak dialogue falls flat, already out of date. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Partly a character study, partly a monster movie (with the girl as the monster) and partly a satire of American values in the modern age, the film is also, alas, only partly successful. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: It's so smug about it and pleased with itself. Read more
Melinda Ennis, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The movie shifts tones as abruptly as a teenager's mood swings. Read more
Janice Page, Boston Globe: Self-conscious, overdone, shallow, and just not up to the level of its star. Read more
Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Too flip to be serious and too smug to be rousing. Read more
Joey Guerra, Houston Chronicle: The screenplay by Skander Halim falters. It's too convoluted and cloudy to have the intended effect. Read more
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Pretty Persuasion is a nasty piece of work. Yet it offers some unvarnished and amusing thoughts about American contradictions. Read more
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: The movie wants so badly to be mentioned in the same breath as Heathers or Election that it's not even funny. Really, I mean it, this charred-black comedy is not even funny. Read more
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: This is a very funny film about a creepy, excruciatingly lonely world. Read more
John Anderson, Newsday: Skander Halim's script and Siega's direction often clash with their own very dark plot. Read more
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Pretty Persuasion sets out to be a social critique but settles for smug disdain. Read more
Stephen Holden, New York Times: Any satire worth its salt should not be afraid to offend, and Pretty Persuasion flings mud in all directions with a fearless audacity. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Reminds me of a half-hour TV series that has a great pilot episode, then falls apart in subsequent installments. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The material in Pretty Persuasion needed to be handled as heavy drama, or played completely for comedy, and by trying to have it both ways, the movie has it neither way. Read more
David Gilmour, Globe and Mail: Extremely well written in the fearless way of a smarty pants on a roll in the university cafeteria. Read more
Susan Walker, Toronto Star: Good writing aside, this screenplay contained the elements of two different films. One of them might have been quite persuasive. Read more
Dennis Harvey, Variety: An exercise in bad taste that takes itself just seriously enough to be offensive. Read more
Ben Kenigsberg, Village Voice: A hand grenade lobbed at no place in particular. Read more
Curt Fields, Washington Post: Populated by characters that are either over-the-top cartoonish or drawn with all the depth of stick figures, there is only one reason to watch this latest entry in the high-school-as-Dante's-ring genre -- Evan Rachel Wood. Read more
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Pretty Persuasion considers itself snarky black comedy, one of those self-consciously 'outrageous' artifacts that means to shock even as it amuses. Read more