A simmering and sexy isolated thriller from one of this generation’s more eclectic filmmakers.
Throughout her career, director Sofia Coppola has managed to depict and visualize loneliness in a way that few other filmmakers ever have. Sometimes she does it by physically sectioning her characters off from the outside world, like the titular group of girls in The Virgin Suicides, who desperately wish to break out from the confines of their constrictive home. Other times, Coppola has done it by planting her introverted leads in the center of noisy metropolitan areas, like in Lost in Translation or Somewhere. But in all of her past films, Coppola’s characters are separated, either literally or physically, stuck in a stasis that only ever allows them to look out at the world, and wonder why it’s seemingly so easy for everyone else to live in it.
In none of Coppola’s films is this perhaps visualized as literally as it is in The Beguiled, her latest period outing set in 1864, where a school of women and young girls live in the forests of the deep South, separated from the world by an iron gate and stone fence. In the school, the women are practically stuck in a time capsule of their own making, living out the same daily routines from sunrise to sundown, wishing that they could just walk right out into the world, and yet are trapped by the conflict of the ongoing Civil War. By the time we catch up with the girls, it’s clear that they’ve all already come to the same conclusion - that yes, while their school may be lonely and confining, at least they’ll always be relatively safe there. But the constant booms of cannon fire echo from nearby like an ever-present thunderstorm, and the violence of that war can only be kept at bay for so long.
Based on Thomas P. Cullinan’s 1966 novel of the same name, The Beguiled begins when the young Amy (Oona Laurence) stumbles upon a dying Union soldier, John McBurney (Colin Farrell), in the woods. Having run away from the battlefield at the height of its intensity, Amy decides to take John back to her school, where his wounds can be treated, and he can be handed over to the Confederacy once he has regained his health. While there, John becomes acquainted with each of the school’s all-female residents, including its steadfast and strong leader, Ms. Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman), its lonesome teacher, Edwina Dabney (Kirsten Dunst), and the bored, sexual Alicia (Elle Fanning).
Throughout his stay, John tries to play to the desires of each of these women, as an attempt to prolong his stay at the school for as long as possible, or at least, until the war is over. Kidman’s Farnsworth remains the only one constantly aware of the dangers of letting John stay, even as he continues to manipulate both Edwina and Alicia, whom he tries to establish sexual relationships with multiple times throughout the film. As the film’s gothic moodiness and source material may inherently reveal, this all comes to a head in several bursts of violence and tension that feel at times as though they were pulled right out of some strange mutant combination of Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs and del Toro’s Crimson Peak. It’s a simmering and sexual thriller that seeps into you so deeply, that you almost start to feel the Southern, smothering heat that bears down on its characters from beginning to end.
In many ways, The Beguiled feels like the most basic of all of Coppola’s films, one that keeps her same eye for creating stunning visual imagery, but trades in her more existential and eccentric narratives for a more straightforward, pulpy plot. With a runtime of only 93 minutes, Coppola shows a level of restraint in her execution of the film’s premise that’s nothing short of admirable.
However, the short runtime also leads to a sudden shift in pacing about two-thirds of the way through the film that feels both jarring and unnecessary when compared to the engrossing, patient pace that Coppola successfully maintains throughout up until that exact turning point. It’s inherently a compliment when I say that The Beguiled could have been 30 minutes longer than it is, but is also a criticism of the film’s thematic shortcomings when I say that it probably should have been too.
That’s a testament, though, to just how enjoyable and entertaining The Beguiled is to watch, even when the thinness of some of its characters becomes evident, and the pacing becomes jumbled in the final act. Coppola gives each of her actors room to breathe all the way throughout, with both Dunst and Farrell turning in believable performances as two of the film’s more frustrating, contradictory characters. But it won’t come as much of a surprise either when I say Kidman is the standout of the ensemble, who establishes a commanding presence for herself every time she’s on screen, as the film’s most likable and well-developed character.
The Verdict
In many ways, The Beguiled is one of Sofia Coppola’s more mature films to date, one that is content with merely offering an entertaining and engrossing experiences for audiences, even if it both benefits and suffers from that restraint at times. It may not be Coppola’s most thought-provoking or emotional outing to date, but it’s a chilling and stunningly well-made one nonetheless.
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