MovieChat Forums > Cruel Intentions (1999) Discussion > They're high school students?

They're high school students?


When I watched this some years ago and onward, I always thought these were a bunch of messed up college teens. But then I realized they were supposed to be high school students in some upper-class setting.

Maybe they would have passed for high school if the actor and actresses they picked didn't look like college students or f-cked up adults. They were able to get away with that with Secret Life of the American Teenager having twenty somethings be in a high school setting. But it didn't work here.

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I disagree. Sarah was only about a few years older than her character at the time of filming, and the other actors looked believable enough as well.

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I agree I thought they were in there twenties kind of like the people in American Pie, was shocked to find out they were still in school. :/

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[deleted]

Develop your reading comprehension. I never said they had to pick teens.

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[deleted]

But how did she get hold of drugs in school, I don't understand that part, and they are underage to drive but are driving? Actually what is the age in America?

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[deleted]

You can drive at 16 in the US, most sophomores (second year of high school) can drive.
Drugs are everywhere for those who look to find them. It was never implied that she got the drugs AT school, merely that she had them in the cross she kept with her. Rich kids with no parental supervision would be able to obrain any type of narcotic easily.

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You don't get it. They have parents who are the wealthiest in high society. When you have that much wealth and prestige you can get away with so much more. The girls I knew stole from Sak's and all the high end store's on Fifth & Park Ave. I learned much later, that the clerks knew they stole and charged it to their parents account. Drugs and booze are very easy to get. These kids have huge bank accounts and credit cards and use their parents guilt against them. They're all miserable and neglected, kind of thrown away in private boarding schools as mommy and daddy travel the world without them.

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There are a few scenes when you can see Ryan's acne around his jaw line. To me, that made him seem young enough to be a senior.

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They represent the elite culture of private schools, living on Fifth, Park and Central Park West crowd, weekends in the Hampton's. That's their world, older teens whose lives revolve around wealth, shopping, entitlement and privilege. I know because I was sent to an all-girls private school and hated every moment I was there, when my parents sent me to Stony Brook School for girls. I cried every day and missed my friends. They wanted me to get into the best colleges and thought this school would help seeing the name of this prestigious school on my transcripts. I was just so miserable being around these people. I never met girls so pretension, self-involved, arrogant, entitled, repugnant, unbalanced, mentally and emotionally screwed up in all my life. They had eating disorders, cheated on exams, stole from Fifth & Park Ave stores, substance user’s cocaine, pot, crank and prescription drugs that they passed around like tic tac’s, bouts of depression and anxiety. 17-year-old alcoholics who were just miserable and mean. I never knew one girl who was happy and they fed off each other’s misery. When I went home for Thanksgiving, told my parents about the drug and alcohol abuse and never returned. I'm sure they were all jealous when my parents listened to me and removed me from the school. This movie reflects that life. I'm sure most of the girls have had numerous trips to rehab and have psychiatrist on retainers, married wealthy men and are still as miserable and screwed up today, they just learned how to hide it better. 

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[deleted]

That sounds very bad.

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I saw it on tv and he wandered off and came back.

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