A newly released HBO series stars Anamaria Vartolomei in a new interpretation of a classic novel about power and seduction

The Romanian-born actress Anamaria Vartolomei, considered one of the rising stars of French cinema, is Isabelle de Merteuil in the new series “Seduction”, launched Friday on HBO Max in a reinterpretation of the famous novel “Dangerous Liaisons” from 1782.

The epistolary novel by the writer Pierre Choderlos de Laclos about the machinations of the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, two former lovers who compete in perfidy to seduce and pervert members of the French aristocracy, has already been screened several times, as Agerpres recalls.

The period film of the same name directed by Stephen Frears in 1988, starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, marked the spirit of its era. Likewise Cruel Intentions from 1999, which moved the plot to contemporary bourgeois New York.

The new series produced by HBO Max, called Merteuil for subscribers in France, The Seduction in English and Seduction for Romanian subscribers, however, it approaches a different perspective: it explores the young years of the Marquise de Merteuil, detailing the trials that will make her a manipulative widow, with a free spirit and easy morals.

In its six episodes, the series presents “the emancipation of a humiliated young woman, who will not let herself be defeated, will not endure that humiliation, those aggressions, that extremely male world and will want to break all the codes of society,” explained director Jessica Palud.

Vartolomei says that the story of the novel and the series based on it is a timeless one

Franco-Romanian actress Anamaria Vartolomei plays the vengeful heroine Isabelle de Merteuil, a woman of the people, pious and ardently courted by the Viscount de Valmont (played by Vincent Lacoste). The viscount stages a fake marriage to steal her virginity, and then disappears from the landscape.

This intimate wound prompts the young woman to educate herself to wage a war against the male tagma.

“In the end, little has changed since that era, for women,” Anamaria Vartolomei told AFP. “It's a story that can seem timeless. And if it's timeless, then it means it's still relevant, unfortunately,” added the French-Romanian actress.

Originally from a village in Bacău county, she emigrated with her family to France when she was only two years old and debuted on the big screen at only 12 years old, in a film alongside the legend of French cinema Isabelle Huppert.

A rising star of French cinema

Vartolomei's career, now 26 years old, experienced a meteoric rise after playing the lead role in the film The event from 2021, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by the French writer Annie Arnaux, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature a year later.

The movie The event won the Golden Lion Grand Prize at the Venice International Film Festival and earned Vartolomei the Lumières Award for Best Actress, the César Award for Most Promising Actress and the Rising Star Award at the 2022 Berlinale.

She recently starred in the new movie The Count of Monte Cristo hit theaters last December and in Mickey 17 from this year. Mickey 17in which she starred alongside actors such as Robert Pattinson and Mark Ruffalo, was South Korean director Bong Joon Ho's first film after abandonedthe 2019 feature film that won him the Academy Award for Best Director.

The new HBO series is a modern reinterpretation of the classic novel

To guide the young Marquise de Merteuil in her process of learning aristocratic and libertine norms, the new series develops the role of Madame de Rosemonde, the aunt of the Viscount de Valmont.

This character with a very small role in the classic novel asserts itself here as a central figure, thanks to the actress Diane Kruger, impeccable in the role of the mentor who transmitted her charming Machiavellianism to her protégé, according to AFP.

“Stop smiling like a fool, only whores let themselves be looked at like that. Seducing means nothing, you have to learn to control men,” she says from the very first episode.

“This relationship between women is a completely free invention in relation to Dangerous links“', explained director Jessica Palud, who previously collaborated with Anamaria Vartolomei on the film increaselast year's biopic about Maria Schneider, the actress humiliated by Marlon Brando during the filming of the movie Last tango in Paris.

“That's the modern character, actually, of this story,” Palud added.

The plot of the series gradually catches up with that of the original novel, but without reproducing it identically. Attracted to each other, but too eager for freedom to abandon their schemes, the Marquise de Merteuil and the Viscount de Valmont make a dangerous bet.

“We see them a bit like heroes, because they are apparently brave and strong,” Anamaria Vartolomei pointed out. “But basically they're almost losers because they deny themselves so many things. They're so feverish about revealing themselves that it's almost absurd,” she added.

“And maybe it is this absurdity that still resonates today,” concluded the French-Romanian actress.