Dahl’s film feels like it belongs to another era. The narrative dénouement is hinged on a deliberately provoked rape. Whilst Bridget, the femme fatale, is the agent of this rape and is using Mike’s action to her own advantage, one can’t see a film treating the dramatic action of rape in this manner now. Likewise, whilst we live in the era of the sassy female lead, it feels unlikely that a female protagonist’s strengths would be pinned on her sexuality and powers of seduction, as the title suggests. Which is not to say that seduction has ceased to exist, or that women, and men, are still likely to use their sexual attractiveness as a means to get ahead in the world. Just that this is no longer material around which a narrative might be structured. As Bridget, the femme fatale, Linda Fiorentino gives a barnstorming performance, loving the limelight and unafraid to hog it, delivering Barancik’s one-liners with a deep-fanged venom. Small town boy Mike (Peter Berg) doesn’t know what he’s got himself into. Bridget’s ingenuity is tied to the cynicism that goes with knowing how easily men can be manipulated by a stockinged leg. She knows how the world works, even when the world doesn’t want to be seen to work that way. She also knows that whether or not she triumphs in the end it can only be a pyrrhic victory: age will defeat her finally no matter what, and she needs to make the most of the time she has before that oldest enemy of all catches up with her.
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