Pretty Persuasion

Pretty Persuasion is a 2005 American black comedy film directed by Marcos Siega, written by Skander Halim, and starring Evan Rachel Wood, James Woods, Ron Livingston, Elisabeth Harnois, and Jane Krakowski. Its plot follows a 15-year-old student at an elite Beverly Hills academy who accuses her drama teacher of sexual harassment. Plot Kimberly Joyce is a precocious, narcissistic, sociopathic high school student at Roxbury Academy, an elite preparatory school in Beverly Hills. She and her best friend Brittany take Randa, a new Muslim student who recently emigrated from the Middle East, under their wing. Kimberly's home life is troubled; her bigoted and disaffected father Hank, an electronics executive, shows little interest in her life, while her vapid stepmother, Kathy, constantly attempts to reprimand her for her coarse language and attitude. Kimberly dreams of becoming an actress, and obtains a coveted role as Anne Frank in the school play. The school drama teacher, Percy Anderson, orders Kimberly and Randa to after-school detention one day for disrupting class, and forces Kimberly to write an essay reflecting on her transgression. Percy takes the essay home that evening and has his wife, Grace, read it aloud provocatively as a role play before the two engage in sex. After Brittany is publicly humiliated by Percy during an acting exercise, Kimberly devises a plan to accuse him of sexually harassing each of them. Unable to afford an attorney, Percy agrees to his friend Roger - a clueless high school law teacher who passed the bar - acting as his attorney. In court, Roger proposes that the accusations are in retaliation to Kimberly having been replaced in the school play after referring to her Jewish classmate Josh's lawyer father as a "money-grubbing shyster." The case becomes a media sensation covered extensively by Emily Klein, a local lesbian reporter. Shortly after the trial begins, Kimberly has a sexual encounter with Emily. Kimberly then manipulates Josh with oral sex into convincing his father Larry, a renowned defense attorney, to defend Percy pro bono. When Larry cross examines Brittany, she confesses on the stand that she, Kimberly, and Randa fabricated the accusations. When Emily confronts her outside the courthouse, Kimberly reveals she filmed their sexual encounter, and uses it as blackmail to receive favorable press coverage.