“Cruel” Production Design

Tags: Blog-a-thon, Production Design, Cruel Intentions

NOTE: This post is a contribution to the Production Design Blog-a-Thon at Too Many Projects Film Club.

Back in high school, I used to frequently look at a site that listed its own Academy Awards. It had typical categories as well as some more unique ones. What appealed to me was that it praised the type of films I was interested in: Magnolia, Traffic, Dancer in the Dark, Being John Malkovich…. I remember reading through some of the earlier lists and seeing, under “Costume Design,” Cruel Intentions.

“Yes,” I said. Someone else was seeing what I was seeing. Cruel Intentions was a guilty pleasure throughout high school, and I was secretly in love with the expensive suits, clothes, and homes of the spoiled brats on screen. Sure, they were all pretentious and sex-crazed, but it all looked so darn pretty!

Revisiting the film now, its lost a little bit of its luster, but I still find the production design to be vastly underrated. It’s difficult for people to recognize the production and costume design of a non-period piece, but I believe there’s merit in the work that we may find “typical” or “un-special.”