“Welcome to the delicious hell that is high society,” beckons the trailer for The Seduction, HBO Max’s steamy new French-language drama inspired by Dangerous Liaisons.
When most of us last saw the Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil, she was in her own private hell, wiping white powder off her tear-stained face. This 18th-century Parisian socialite, memorably played by Glenn Close in the 1988 Stephen Frears movie, was ruined every which way – schemes exposed, reputation in tatters, shamed and booed at the opera.
