The Beguiled (2017)
A girls boarding school takes in an injured, scheming, Civil War defector in this Cannes Best Director-winning period drama from Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette). All-star cast includes Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning.
This is Coppola's sixth feature, based upon the novel A Painted Devil (previously brought to the screen as The Beguiled, starring Clint Eastwood, in 1971). Story follows a Union soldier (Farrell) during the American Civil War who, while imprisoned in a Confederate girls' boarding school, cons his way into each of the lonely women's hearts, causing them to turn on each other, and eventually, on him.
Reviews & comments
Our Toy Soldier
When a wounded Union soldier behind enemy lines ends up in a Confederate girl's boarding school, the staff and students have an intriguing problem in their laps. The conflict between duty to their own side in the war, mercy for a wounded person and sexual desire drive the women and girls to varying degrees. These conflicts, the existing school hierarchy,...
Lovely exterior, but...
Sofia Coppola’s remake of the early 1970s Don Siegel / Clint Eastwood classic looks beautiful, with Philippe Le Sourd’s cinematography oozing sensuality in every scene. Coppola turns up the repressed sexuality to eleven, as the camera lingers on Colin Farrell’s body, or Nicole Kidman’s eyes, Kirsten Dunst's lips, or Elle Fanning's neck. The gorgeous...
a beguiling exercise in form over substance
When movie’s form and substance are not in harmony the strain can be obvious. With a stellar cast, superb cinematography and magnificent American Gothic period setting, The Beguiled (2017) has uncompromisingly beautiful form. In terms of substance, on the other hand, its characterisation and narrative interpretation are underwhelming. The storyline is...
Vulture
pressIts power is in its undercurrents, in the sense that what we're seeing isn't inevitable but a sort of worst-case scenario of genders in opposition.
Variety
pressI count myself as a Coppola believer, but this may be the first film she has made in which her essential personality as a director gets buried under the movie she's making.
The New York Times
press"Beguiled" is less a hothouse flower than a bonsai garden, a work of cool, exquisite artifice that evokes wildness on a small, controlled scale.
Stuff
pressPerfectly paced and terrifically engrossing, Beguiled draws the viewer in with its shifting sympathies and nuanced characters.
Los Angeles Times
press"The Beguiled" has some of the spooky, suggestive magic of a fairy tale.
Hollywood Reporter
pressOther than to place slightly more emphasis on the female empowerment angle ... it's hard to detect a strong raison d'etre behind Sofia Coppola's slow-to-develop melodrama.
Vulture
pressIts power is in its undercurrents, in the sense that what we're seeing isn't inevitable but a sort of worst-case scenario of genders in opposition.
Variety
pressI count myself as a Coppola believer, but this may be the first film she has made in which her essential personality as a director gets buried under the movie she's making.
The New York Times
press"Beguiled" is less a hothouse flower than a bonsai garden, a work of cool, exquisite artifice that evokes wildness on a small, controlled scale.
Stuff
pressPerfectly paced and terrifically engrossing, Beguiled draws the viewer in with its shifting sympathies and nuanced characters.
Los Angeles Times
press"The Beguiled" has some of the spooky, suggestive magic of a fairy tale.
Hollywood Reporter
pressOther than to place slightly more emphasis on the female empowerment angle ... it's hard to detect a strong raison d'etre behind Sofia Coppola's slow-to-develop melodrama.
Our Toy Soldier
When a wounded Union soldier behind enemy lines ends up in a Confederate girl's boarding school, the staff and students have an intriguing problem in their laps. The conflict between duty to their own side in the war, mercy for a wounded person and sexual desire drive the women and girls to varying degrees. These conflicts, the existing school hierarchy,...
Lovely exterior, but...
Sofia Coppola’s remake of the early 1970s Don Siegel / Clint Eastwood classic looks beautiful, with Philippe Le Sourd’s cinematography oozing sensuality in every scene. Coppola turns up the repressed sexuality to eleven, as the camera lingers on Colin Farrell’s body, or Nicole Kidman’s eyes, Kirsten Dunst's lips, or Elle Fanning's neck. The gorgeous...
a beguiling exercise in form over substance
When movie’s form and substance are not in harmony the strain can be obvious. With a stellar cast, superb cinematography and magnificent American Gothic period setting, The Beguiled (2017) has uncompromisingly beautiful form. In terms of substance, on the other hand, its characterisation and narrative interpretation are underwhelming. The storyline is...
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