Directed by:
Sofia CoppolaCinematography:
Philippe Le SourdCast:
Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke, Emma Howard, Wayne PéreVOD (2)
Plots(1)
Sofia Coppola's adaptation of this Southern Gothic tale of sexual rivalries stars Colin Farrell as a wounded Union soldier who triggers dangerous desires when he's taken in by the headmistress of an all-girls boarding school. (Home Box Office)
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Reviews (12)
I didn't find the film worth a second watch. It was a truly unconventional take on the war between the North and the South. I wasn't bored, but I came pretty close. The plot definitely needed livening up. The only performance that stood out for me was Nicole Kidman’s, the others were just too bland.
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Sofia Coppola has always relied on emotion rather than historical epic, and this personal story of a woman's motivations and feelings is no different. The running time, the story, and the protagonists, dominated primarily by Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst, are in line with this. Colin Farrell's character has it all together in the middle of the film and then starts making incomprehensible and illogical (screenwriting) mistakes, which, given the leisurely build-up of the story, feels like a punch in the gut. Otherwise, the cinematography is great, as it should be in a historical drama, but one can't help feeling that some of the main characters' interactions feel like Coppola made this film with a nineteenth-century style.
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OK, gorgeous pictures, almost tableau vivant, fantastic natural lighting, charismatic cast, but I have to ask: WHY? There is a nice word for that - everything in this film is "underwritten". Characters and a story that moves forward through sharp reversals in the mood of a single male character. I get that Sofia wanted to change the perspective, but she failed. Deceived / Deceived / Deceived are too empty to offer material for subversion. In the end, it was best described by an American spectator who, when leaving the Cannes Palais de Cinema, said: COMPLETELY USELESS. I agree.
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For a ninety-minute feature, The Beguiled doesn’t have much of a plot. Kirstens' Dunst’s well-played Victorian restraint and innocence (read: sexual desire ready to be awakened) and another great performance by Nicole Kidman as the head of the household are the only things that interested me here. Many scenes had half the screening room (including me) in stitches. Sofia Coppola forgot that the contemporary viewer is not one of the protagonists of her film and its time. If a remake for a contemporary audience really was necessary, it should have been made by Guillermo del Toro. With a healthy dose of ketchup. [Cannes]
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The original film from 1971 is no miracle, but it is still done much better overall. The original is significantly richer in plot in terms of character portrayal, and it contains much more tension, conflicts between characters and more daring sexual tension. The conclusion also had a better- elaborated point. In the new version, the director mainly failed to make the film more from the point of view of his female characters, which was probably the intention, and then transfer to the present its atmosphere of a spinster’s prudish girl's dormitory, in which a forbidden temptation suddenly appeared in the form of a handsome man, which is why viewers seem to mistakenly confuse the film with a black comedy and react to it with laughter. Compared to the original film version, the story is shallow and sparse, the motivations of the characters are not clear enough, and even the stellar cast is average at best.
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