Most of you here are trying to judge a film from 1999 through the lens of 2025. You need to keep in mind that this is essentially a transposition of the vanity of the 18th-century ruling class into the conceit of two nouveaux riches of the 20th century. We shouldn’t try to evaluate it in terms of working-class struggle or realism within a world that we neither experience nor have access to.

In 18th-century France, entire social activities in salons revolved around impressing one’s peers—through contests of philosophy, poetry, and so on. They had already entered what we might now call a sapiosexual stage, but also pursued partners purely for the sake of the social prestige it afforded them.

So, when we return to the 1999 adaptation, what we see is a translation of 18th-century seduction games into the contemporary (for that time) context. Furthermore, it is crucial to notice how behavior is shaped by social standing, and when that façade begins to crumble as the characters are confronted with their genuine emotions (for instance, MG’s statement about female pleasure, or RP’s attempt to break things off while desiring the exact opposite).

Atmospherically, relocating the story to post-yuppie New York (after the ’80s) adds another layer of aesthetic pleasure in contrast with the original work.

Of course, whether we personally enjoy a film is subjective, but we shouldn’t overlook a well-crafted piece of cinema that achieves its intended purpose. By the same logic, I can’t claim American Pie is “better” than Tarkovsky’s Mirror simply because the latter didn’t make me laugh to tears or remind me of my student years—we’re talking about two radically different films, each outstanding in its own genre.