Review of The Beguiled (2017) by Robby K — 20 Jul 2017

Sofia Coppola is someone that I've always regarded as being better than her work. Besides "Lost in Translation" she hasn't really broken that barrier between good and great with her films.

And since Lost in Translation was made back in 2003, she hadn't really got back to that level of success. With "The Beguiled" she doesn't quite return to that level, but it's the closest she's gotten since.

Her directing is the standout of the film altogether. The performances aren't bad, but none of them really take a hold of the movie. Colin Farrell comes close, Kirsten Dunst and Nicole Kidman more than hold their own, and the kid actors are all very advanced for their age.

The film plays as an ensemble, which normally isn't a negative, but this movie really could have used a standout central performance to focus in on. The one big name I excluded earlier was Elle Fanning.

I'm not saying she was bad, quite the opposite in fact, but we've seen her do this same sort of thing in almost every film she's in. Just last year she played the same kind of role in "20th Century Women" to a greater effect.

This film is also very patient for as short as it is, but Coppola perfectly fits everything she needs into the runtime which helps the movie not overstay its welcome. Overall "The Beguiled" does everything it needs to correctly, it just needed something else to bring it together.