Movie Review—The Beguiled

The Beguiled
Theatrical release poster

by Peter J. O'Connell                                                                                                                                                    

The Beguiled. Released: June 2017. Runtime: 93 mins. MPAA Rating: R for some sexuality.

Thomas Cullinan's novel A Painted Devil has made it to the screen twice, both times under the title The Beguiled. The first time was in 1971, and Clint Eastwood starred during the transition period from his iconic Man With No Name character in Westerns to his iconic Dirty Harry character in crime dramas. The 1971 version of the story, with Eastwood as a wounded Union soldier in Mississippi in 1863, is actually about the war between the sexes rather than the War Between the States. Done in Southern Gothic mode, director Don Siegel described the film as about the “basic desire of women to castrate men.” Such was one Hollywood response to the emergence of militant feminism.

Now 46 years later, director Sofia Coppola has brought forth her version of The Beguiled, this time set in Virginia in 1864. Coppola's version is not without violence, but it is not the violence of the Civil War, which she simply indicates by the occasional sound of cannon fire in the distance. And Coppola's violence is proceeded by what we might think of as, so to speak, the personal and emotional correlatives of political and diplomatic maneuvering before the outbreak of actual violent conflict. 

Whereas Siegel was interested in the threat that angry women posed to a male protagonist, Coppola is interested in the changes that take place in a world of women when a man enters into it. The world she depicts is that of Miss Farnsworth's Seminary for Young Ladies, a boarding school located in a plantation house. But all the slaves and most of the students have left the isolated and now overgrown place. Only five students, of various ages and personalities, remain to be taught by the starchy Miss Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) and her assistant, Miss Morrow (Kirsten Dunst), who has vague yearnings for a different life.

This world starts to change when young Amy (Oona Laurence), collecting mushrooms, discovers that a  badly injured Union soldier, John McBurney (Colin Farrell), in effect a deserter, has made his way onto the plantation grounds. Miss Farnsworth says that Christian charity commands that they care for the handsome John before deciding what to do with him.

While John is recovering, the women and girls start to compete with each other for his attention and affection—providing him lingering sponge baths, giving presents, dressing up, wearing jewelry, having “meaningful” conversations, preparing a luxurious dinner. The sultry, restless Alicia (Elle Fanning) offers kisses. 

As John regains his strength, he sets about manipulating the women and girls by making each one think that he has a special bond with her. To avoid returning to the war, he seeks to have Miss Farnsworth keep him on as gardener, and he tells Ms. Morrow that he has fallen in love with her.

But John's shape-shifting maneuvers in that genteel world—dimly lit inside, hazy and misty outside-- of women in white eventually lead to actual violence once Miss Farnsworth commands: “Bring me the anatomy book.” And John, though ostensibly a soldier, is not the victor in that violence. 

So, which version of The Beguiled should be more beguiling to film fans, 1971's with its emphasis on male anxieties or 2017's with its focus on a female world? Gothic or genteel? It's obviously a matter of individual taste. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses.

Colin Farrell, though not charismatic like Clint Eastwood, is quite convincing as John. Nicole Kidman is effective but a bit “underdone” in the headmistress role (certainly so as compared with Geraldine  Page in the 1971 version). Elle Fanning as Alicia is rather over the top (or “overheated”), but Kirsten Dunst seems exactly right as Morrow, as do the actresses portraying the other students. And the sensitive cinematography of Philippe Le Sourd is also exactly right for the mood that Coppola wishes to create. 

All in all, if love is a battlefield, Sofia Coppola proves herself with The Beguiled, as she has with other films, a competent cinematic commander.