The original The Beguiled, released in 1971, just before Dirty Harry, has long been considered an oddity in Clint Eastwood’s career, and it remains one of his lesser known films. I haven’t seen it in over 20 years, so I cannot compare it to this new version from director Sofia Coppola, though she has been at pains to position this as a re-imagining of the original source material, the book by Thomas Cullinan.
Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst star as Martha and Edwina, teachers at a girls’ school in Virginia. It is during the civil war and they only have a handful of pupils left studying and boarding there. One of those pupils, Amy (Oona Lawrence) finds a wounded union soldier, Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) in the woods and Martha agrees to take him in and tend to his wounds. But allowing a man into the ladies closeted world has significant results….
This film is all about its febrile atmosphere in the steamy southern state. Temperatures are already riding high when John, a virile man despite his injuries, is inserted into the mix. Martha, Edwina and oldest pupil Alicia (Elle Fanning) all come under his spell, and the sexual tension almost becomes overwhelming.
It is a shame that once things finally boil over, the spell is broken and characters start to behave in ways that are not believable based on what we have seen before, and the film fizzles out somewhat. However, Kidman is better than she had been for sometime and the more reliable Dunst and Fanning show just the right level of simmering sexual tension. Farrell, an underrated performer, is okay but doesn’t quite have the level of malevolent charm that, say, a young Clint Eastwood would have brought to the story!
Coppola remains a director that I am mixed on, though this is her best effort since Lost in Translation (2003).
Rating: 7.5 out of 10