HBO’s ‘The Seduction’ Uses Sex, Romance, and Feminism to Flip the Script on ‘Dangerous Liaisons’

Halfway through HBO Max‘s sumptuous new French drama, The Seduction, a judge pointedly asks Isabelle de Merteuil (Anamaria Vartolomei) if she knows what a libertine is. The Marquise de Merteuil — who knows she is under suspicion of committing bigamy, adultery, and many other such sensual crimes — cheekily replies “I suppose it has to do with freedom?” With one line, she nimbly avoids the term’s equally accurate, sexually degenerate definition, while also summing up The Seduction‘s most profound theme.

The Seduction is a radical retelling of the French 18th century novel Dangerous Liaisons that transforms the story of the scheming Marquise de Merteuil and her lover/rival/penpal, the Vicomte de Valmont (Vincent Lacoste), into a lush and tragic romance. While there have been many, many retellings of the story over the centuries, from the Oscar-nominated 1988 film starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich as the sparring socialites to 1999’s campy teen flick Cruel Intentions, The Seduction is the first that successfully subverts the duo’s manipulative games and wanton sexual romps into something far more complex than pure depravity.

In the original Dangerous Liaisons, Merteuil is a cruel and venal woman whose wealth and beauty give her the power to toy with the other nobles in her circle. She delights in ruining other women and promises her former lover, the notorious libertine Valmont, that she will sleep with him again only if he can seduce the virtuous Madame de Tourvel. Valmont winds up actually falling in love with the pious woman, prompting a cascade of events that ultimately claim his life and expose Merteuil’s evil for all of society to see. The Seduction completely reframes this saga, starting with Merteuil herself. She’s not a villain in this telling, but rather, a woman longing for a freedom she will never have.

Before she was the Marquise de Merteuil, the young woman born Isabelle Dassonville was an orphan madly in love with a charming groundsman, Lucien Beaucaillou. He wrote her letters of devotion, proposing marriage and promising that his aunt will stand in as witness for their wedding. After a passionate night of love-making, Isabelle’s dream quickly turned into a nightmare. Lucien Beaucaillou never existed; he was merely the rakish Vicomte de Valmont in disguise. He tricked her into this sham marriage so he could take Isabelle’s virginity. His aunt and fellow libertine, Madame de Rosemonde (Diane Kruger), was in on the deception the whole time.

Despite her utter innocence in the matter, Isabelle is now officially ruined in the eyes of the convent that raised her. They insist on sending her to the ominous “Black Cross convent” to absolve her of her “guilt.” The defiant Isabelle refuses and finds herself utterly lost and contemplating ending it all. Then she gets a different idea. Isabelle boldly confronts Rosemonde about her complicity, impressing the woman and giving her an idea.

Rosemonde takes Isabelle under her wing, plotting to use her fresh beauty to win back her own powerful ex, the Comte de Gercourt (Lucas Bravo). The women travel to Paris, the heart of debauched high society, and Isabelle soon discovers a world where sex is used for power, pleasure, and so much more.

“There are quite a few sex scenes, but they’re all meaningful and they all represent different types of sex,” The Seduction‘s director Jessica Palud said to DECIDER. “There’s the sex of the first time, sex for sex, sex that comes out of love, the sex that really is an assault, the sex that damages, sex scenes with several people. All those scenes were filmed differently.”

Series star Anamaria Vartolomei told DECIDER that depicting this spectrum of sex was a “quest” for Palud: “To show sex, but the complexity of it.”

Over the course of The Seduction‘s six episodes, Isabelle resists sexual assault, but endures the incessant demands of her old and rich husband, the Marquis de Merteuil. She later indulges in nights of wanton passion, taking multiple men to bed. She teaches young lovers Cécile de Volanges (Fantine Harduin) and Chevalier Danceny (Samuel Kircher) how to achieve shared climax, but also fakes her own desire for clout.

Vartolomei explained that Merteuil’s role within the world of the libertines gave her the opportunity to explore the idea of “forced desire.”

“Fooling yourself that you want to be there,” Vartolomei said. “For example, there’s this scene where Rosemonde tells Isabelle, ‘I want you to prove to me that you are a good libertine.’”

The Marquise participates in this night of debauchery, but it’s clear she’s not free at all in the moment. “She will do it, but only to prove to the others that she deserves her title, in a way,” Vartolomei said.

Jessica Palud worked with two intimacy coordinators — including one who had previously collaborated with Palud and Vartolomei on Being Maria, a film about actress Maria Schneider‘s hellacious experiences shooting Last Tango in Paris — to capture all of these tonally different sex scenes.

“It’s true that when you work with those coordinators sometimes, as a director, you can be quite frightened that they are going to interfere with your mise-en-scéne, but in fact, this is not their work,” Palud said. “I mean, they’re just here to make sure that the scenes are not going to go beyond what the actors have consented to.”

“I think it’s quite good for a director because it forces you to actually think about why do you want to do that and that and how,” she said, recalling the many, many meetings with various craft teams to get the sex scenes right. “So I would say in a way, that filming a sex scene is something that you rehearse and it’s not any different from filming a stunt scene or a fencing scene. It’s just the same. It’s work.”

And the work is exquisite. Visually, The Seduction is an intoxicating show to watch. It’s a sea of period costumes embroidered with elegant beading and sets dressed in gilt and candlelight. The aforementioned sex scenes are inventive, emotive, and uniquely distinct. The actors are not only incredibly talented, but dazzlingly beautiful. (I mean, the woman that Hollywood cast as Helen of Troy is in this.)

Thrumming throughout The Seduction — giving this story a spirit beyond just the sensual — is the question of whether or not Isabelle and Valmont are secretly really in love with each other. Isabelle was so destroyed by her heartache that she rebuilds herself as the impenetrable Merteuil, while Valmont claims early on, to his chagrin, that he might actually love Isabelle.

“You know, what is the worst [thing] for the biggest libertine of all time, like a Casanova? What is the worst for him is to fall in love with a single woman,” Vincent Lacoste said.

“What is interesting is that through the whole show, he tries to seduce her back and you don’t really know if he was completely sincere or not,” he continued. “There will always be a little doubt in his feeling because he’s in love, but it’s good for him to seduce her. It’s the biggest challenge that he ever has to do. It’s complex and it’s nuanced and that’s why I love that.”

Vartolomei said that although Merteuil seeks the freedom she spoke about with the judge in Episode 4, she doesn’t think there’s a single moment where Isabelle fully gets to feel free, despite her “libertine” lifestyle.

“She doesn’t allow herself to show any sign of failure, any sign of vulnerability or fragility,” Vartolomei said. “So I think she’s kind of trapped in the role that she started to create and to play.”

“Her only tool is continuing to play this bold woman, that nothing can disturb her. But inside of her, she’s completely lost and and fragile.”

It’s those contradictions, and this complex take on the Marquise de Merteuil and all of the other characters in her orbit, that make The Seduction so easy to fall for.

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How To Watch The Seduction

The first episode of The Seduction is now streaming on HBO Max. New episodes premiere on Fridays.

If you’re new to HBO Max, you can sign up for as low as $10.99/month with ads, but an ad-free subscription will cost $18.49/month.

If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the discounted Disney+ Bundles with Hulu and HBO Max. With ads, the bundle costs $19.99/month and without ads, $32.99/month.