Dangerous Beauty (1998) - Movie Synopsis & Plot

At a time where women have few rights and are treated like property, the most sensual and captivating woman of her day dares to confront convention to become a powerful force for change.

As passionate a thinker as she is a lover, Veronica Franco (CATHERINE MCCORMACK)defies the cultured but decadent world of 1 6th-century Venice to assert the rights of women to be respected and loved, no matter what their station in life. With her body, her spirit and her contagious good humor, Veronica transforms the hearts of men - and the fate of women.

MARSHALL HERSKOVITZ directs "Dangerous Beauty," a sweeping story of desire, power, betrayal and redemption set in a gilded world and revolving around the magnetic beauty and intelligence of one extraordinary woman.

Veronica is brilliant, gifted and beautiful, but the handsome aristocrat she loves, Marco Venier (RUFUS SEWELL), cannot marry her because she is penniless and of questionable family. So Veronica's mother, Paola (JACQUELINE BISSET), teaches her to become a courtesan, one of the exotic companions favored by the richest and most powerful Venetian men. Courtesans, though excluded from the polite female society of wives and daughters, were the only women allowed an education or knowledge of the arts, and their sophistication gave them access to the hearts and minds of men in the highest places.

Veronica eventually rises to become the most successful and celebrated courtesan in Venice-a woman whose arresting beauty and wit bring her everything she could possibly want-except a legitimate place in society and a life with the man she adores. Though the respectably married women of Venice shun her, and the men who cannot afford her favors condemn her, Veronica makes brilliant use of her intelligence and her intimacy with men to build a powerful, sensual and luxurious life for herself.

As Venice stands poised for destruction by forces outside its borders, Veronica courageously uses her charms to change destiny-and to give herself a chance at true love. But in so doing, she puts her very life in danger.

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