Review of The Beguiled (2017) by Grantd243 — 06 May 2018

The Beguiled is a rather simple film. It all takes place during the Civil War and most of the story occurs inside and around one mansion that is owned by a southern lady. She runs a school for young women within the mansion and as a result the only occupants of the mansion are women. One of the young women finds an injured Union soldier in the woods. They decide to help heal him instead of handing him over to the Confederate patrol, and things start to get a bit tense as time goes on and he spends more time with the women. This film is well made and well acted, but at the end of the day it is the story that makes it come up short from being a great film, in my opinion. The entire film is setting up a rather specific scenario with the soldier. A decision that he will make that will shape the rest of the film, and honestly, when the time came it was a bit anti-climatic and from there on it was rather obvious the path the story would go down. I was reminded a lot of mother! as I was watching The Beguiled. I do think that this is a better film, but because it seemed like it was over an hour of building up for something that ultimately disappointed me...I couldn't help but think of mother! as the credits rolled.

This isn't a bad film, but given a better story I do think it had the potential to be much better.