*Pretty Persuasion (2005) - B- (though if what I'm curious about is the actual source of any large aspect of the film than C- is a bit generous. After all, beggars borrow . . . and this was borrowing.)

I don't know what I expected going into this, but it's exceptionally blunt and even more so caustic in terms of its obvious anger at amongst other things, the sacrifice of dignity for fame, the sacrifice of fame for infamy, and the meaning of the words "collateral damage" as imagined by somebody young in terms of being an American today.

The reason this is a bonus review is that I figured out where I had seen Evan Rachel Wood's performance before: the matter of fact silly-coquetish know-it-all who leads to friends' destructions, which is Ms. Beckinsale's character in Last Days of Disco, which, again, I can't help but recommend thoroughly (the latter film).

Particularly in the scenes at the end in which each actress lets their self-loathing shine through, which is a much longer and thus somewhat more painful scene in Ms. Wood's case, and please don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking Ms. Wood ever saw the movie - she would've been, what, 10, when it came out. Producers, however. . .

As for the twist, it's very much not a twist in that if you are paying attention, it's detectable about 5 minutes into the movie without any particularly silly conjectures necessary. Instead it's pretty much the equivalent of Heathers' Slater characters motive in terms of, well, duh (other) girl - it has always been fairly obvious what was going on.