The Beguiled (2017)

Directed by: Sofia Coppola | 94 minutes | drama | Actors: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke, Emma Howard, Wayne Pére, Matt Story, Joel Albin, Eric Ian

Men are generally rational beings, while women mainly let their emotions speak. Just look at the way groups of men interact – as comrades, straightforward and direct. If one of the men has a problem with the other, this is immediately brought up: they speak it out to each other and in a few cases they fight each other. But at least the sting is quickly taken out. How different it is for women. They are more likely to fall into gossip and backbiting, they try to involve others in the feud and in conversations much more has to be read between the lines. Sofia Coppola is fascinated by the mutual relationships between men and women in general, and between women in particular. It can be seen in almost all her films, but perhaps most clearly in her latest movie, ‘The Beguiled’ (2017). This film, about an injured corporal who ends up in a girls’ boarding school where he causes a stir and puts the relations between the women on edge, is a remake of Don Siegel’s drama of the same name from 1971. It is based on the novel ‘ A Painted Devil’ by American author Thomas P. Cullinan. The story is set in Virginia during the American Civil War, in which the North and the South of the US were at odds with each other. The time of slavery, then, but in Coppola’s film the only black character has been omitted from the novel. This earned her quite a bit of criticism, even though she gave the reason for finding slavery to be such an important theme that she couldn’t ‘hide’ it in a bit part or a footnote. “You should actually make a much bigger film about that,” she said during a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, where she was awarded the prize for best director.

In ‘The Beguiled’ she focuses purely on the friction that arises when a woman’s stronghold is suddenly disrupted by the arrival of a man. A man, moreover, who cannot go anywhere because of his injuries and who is completely dependent on the women around him. Women that he, clever as he is, tries to pit against each other. While the corporal in question was played by Clint Eastwood in Siegel’s film (completely against his image of a primeval cowboy), in Coppola’s version Colin Farrell takes on the role of male sex object. He is found seriously injured in the woods by the young girl Amy (Oona Laurence), who is picking mushrooms. She does what any well-bred Christian girl would do; she drags him to the boarding school where she stays with four other girls, the firm teacher Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman) and the shy teacher Edwina (Kirsten Dunst). Even though they initially don’t trust the Yank – who fights on behalf of the northern states – they decide to patch him up anyway. He can’t do much right now. But it doesn’t take long before his presence starts to leave his mark on the atmosphere in the boarding school. With nice words, McBurney placates the mousy, deeply unhappy Edwina, who hopes to escape the boarding school through him. Adolescent Alicia (Elle Fanning) develops her first lust and even the youngest girls fight for his attention. When the aloof Martha also becomes sensitive to his affections, the stops blow. But how innocent is McBurney really? Does he deliberately pit the women against each other? And how do they deal with that? The mood quickly changes from sweet innocence to threatening tension.

Where Siegel told the story from McBurney’s point of view, Coppola chooses to tell the events from the women’s perspective. That makes the film all the more interesting, because it keeps it in the middle how innocent the characters actually are. One minute you’re convinced that McBurney is approaching his female company with the best of intentions and that it’s the women who can’t be trusted, the next the roles are completely reversed. As a result, the story, which is in fact a psychological drama, takes on the characteristics of an oppressive thriller. There is something terrifying about the serene tranquility that prevails in the women’s stronghold; all those girls neatly in line, the dreamy setting in an imposing mansion, the conspiracy between the women. But Coppola’s film is less ‘Southern gothic’ than Siegel’s, because of its feminine approach. The boarding school is a paradise oasis in the middle of the male battlefield. And it is McBurney who first punctures the innocence, by taking over Edwina. Coppola thus portrays the man as an intruder, who sullies the female innocence. Without him those temptations would not exist.

The film is shot very stylishly, in picturesque pastel tones that not only indicate the era, but also determine the atmosphere to a large extent. Thanks to a different image format (1.66:1), the oppressive atmosphere is extra emphasized. No wonder Kirsten Dunst’s character Miss Edwina feels trapped; that’s how it feels to the viewer too! The acting is quite fine. Nicole Kidman plays these hypothermic, inscrutable types with playful ease. Colin Farrell is more sensual and exciting as a sex object than the free cool Eastwood, Dunst is the easy-to-grasp victim. Fanning is perhaps the most interesting female character yet; though she’s the first to call out for him to be reported to the Confederate troops, she’s undeniably attracted to him like a magnet and doesn’t hide her audacity. As the most outspoken of the whole bunch, she is an exception in an otherwise quite chilled film, in which most of it takes place below the surface.

‘The Beguiled’ is a beautifully shot, dreamy film that stylistically harks back to Coppola’s 1999 debut, ‘The Virgin Suicides’. Coppola’s version is a lot more female-friendly and less black and white, in the sense that each character has its good and bad sides. No one is one hundred percent innocent in this highly acted psychological drama.