Amazon has already provided the plot so I won't rehash the details here. The surprise is in the actors. When actors will be measured against Faye Dunaway, John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer they better be pretty damn good. To my great shock Sarah Michelle Geller, Reese Witherspoon, and Ryan Phillipe prove up to the task. They may not be quite as interesting as the more sophisticated cast of the older movie but they are very, very impressive. Sarah Michelle Geller. in particular, is a revelation. I would not have believed that she could play a role this nuanced, and this unlikable, with complete conviction. But she succeeds totally as the serpentine enitity who encourages the corruption in everyone around her.

Witherspoon is the "good girl" but she is smart and strong and eventually turns the tables on the Geller character with grim determination.

Phillipe is surprisingly effect as the upperclass preppie romeo/who is a completely repulsive character until he finds redemption by revealing himself in all his spiritual ugliness to the one he loves.

I think this movie was more interesting because I had seen the older film. I would strongly suggest getting both to heighten your enjoyment of each version of the story.

Parenthetically, Geller was exceptionally alluring in this project, a quality that I never saw in her other work.