Review of The Beguiled (2017) by Kaptenvideo — 31 Jul 2017

Over her directing career, Sofia Coppola has won quite a lot of praise, arguably the biggest of which came this year in Cannes where she was announced the best director for „The Beguiled“.

It feels a lot like a political decision – after all, it marked the first time in 50 years a woman won the award, and only the second time overall.

„The Beguiled“ doesn’t really feel like her best work for many, including me. Most like "Lost in Translation", I personally was most deeply touched by „Somewhere“. (I know, such a surprising choice.).

But it surely is one of her most crowdpleasing films. Just think of the story and possibilities coming with it. US Civil War, Southern girls’ boarding school. Sheltered young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they tend to his wounds, the household is fast taken over with sexual tension and rivalries… And all this in rich southern gothic like sauce.

Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, „The Beguiled“ is based on Thomas Cullinan novel which has already been brought to screen in 1971, with Clint Eastwood as the male lead. This time, it’s Colin Farrell vs Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and the others. What could go wrong?

Well… it is not bad. It’s just too short and underdeveloped to be really really good – you know, Cannes winning director worthy. While I really appreciate films being less than two hours for a change, there’s really too much exciting content here to be contained in only 93 minutes.

Thus, the third and final chapter of the story is noticeably weaker than what comes before that. One shouldn’t save time on building atmosphere, characters and relationships when all these are essential to the story.

To Coppola’s credit, she’s still a fine director. By which I mean she’s good technical director: everything feels well composed and thoughtful.

The movie as a whole also feels somewhat less emotionally distanced and dry than her usual, because she’s playing with different genres and manages to offer delicious mix of southern gothic, drama, subtle black comedy, erotic thriller, even horror. And, of course, you can’t have "dry and distanced" in the middle of this lush southern setting.

All this is supported by able cast consisting mostly of women, Farrell in the middle of it all is not the most important player.

It’s much more intriguing to watch all the women circling around him, nobody usually in the forefront, but almost everybody out there to stake a claim. The acting is mostly about nuances and subtlety, so there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had from just watching and witnessing.

I am especially happy for Nicole Kidman doing another good role in a good movie recently (after „Lion“). She’s appeared in so many forgetful and mediocre projects in this century that it’s hard to get excited about her appearing somewhere anymore.

The bigger parts also go to Dunst and Fanning, who are playing to their usual strengths, one shy but heartful, the other one kind of dangerous and lustful. All this works, and works well.

In a way, Sofia Coppola’s movies are like Jim Jarmusch’s. if you can’t invest yourself in her slow moving stories mostly interested in mood rather action or being easily digestible, you can feel bored or underwhelmed soon.

As mentioned above, „The Beguiled“ is somewhat more welcoming than her usual. But as a whole, it feels also uncomplete, or less complete than usual.

But I'm, of course, still happy about having seen it, and Coppola continuing to make movies.