Updated adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’ classic 18th Century tale of seduction, betrayal and revenge set in the modern 1960s world of Parisian high society. The beautiful Madame de Merteuil seeks vengeance against her ex-lover Gercourt when he becomes engaged to her young goddaughter, Cécile. Merteuil turns to her ex-lover/partner-in-crime, Valmont, famous for his reputation as a Don Juan, to seduce Cécile and emotionally destroy her. While on his mission, Valmont gets sidetracked when he goes to visit his aunt and falls for Madame Tourvel, a virtuous, married woman who knows of his womanizing ways, but that only makes the challenge more exciting to Valmont. Together, Madame de Merteuil and Valmont make a dangerous team and they will stop at nothing when it comes to matters of the heart. –IMDb
Born in 1943, Josée Dayan grew up in Algiers beside her television-director father and a grandmother who owned a movie theater. She has directed more than one hundred television movies, often literary adaptations, which she has made with the biggest names in French cinema. Among others, she has directed Gérard Depardieu in Balzac in 1999, Catherine Deneuve in Les liaisons dangereuses in 2003, Jeanne Moreau in Cet amour-là in 2001. —docstoc.com
If only this had been made about a decade earlier, the casting of Deneuve and Rupert Everett would have been PERFECT.
They were still pretty splendid, though. If this is what cheesy TV drama looks like in France, I've got another good reason to move.