The Beguiled

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] (25/05/2017)

The Beguiled is a gentler, more sensual and more sophisticated take on Thomas Cullin’s novel than the film made by Don Siegel and Clint Eastwood in 1971. In the original film, the ruin of men was represented by jealous and vengeful women who were incapable of suppressing their lust. Therefore, I understand Sofia Coppola’s decision to rework the same subject matter so that the result would not be a film expressing male paranoia about female hysteria and in which Southern belles are defined solely by their sexuality (or lack thereof). Coppola dispensed with the broader historical context and replaced it with a timeless narrative about the battle of the sexes and girls coming of age. Similarly as in The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette, she confines her female protagonists to a golden cage, which provides them with certain privileges but also prevents them from freely expressing their individual interests. This confinement is manifested also in The Beguiled in the disregard for the outside world, corresponding to the point of view of privileged white girls who are only interested in their own needs. Despite its seeming one-dimensionality and superficiality, The Beguiled is a layered, subversive and humorous film with an ambiguous message. 85% (14/07/2017)

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. (27/05/2017)

An hour-long wait for a peak that definitely isn't worth an hour-long wait. Lots of stolen glances, genuine curiosity, and suppressed emotions do all the heavy lifting for plot development that struck me as belonging in a different, significantly less successful film. The answers to the questions that interested me the most remained hidden behind silent female characters. Sofia Coppola is definitely losing her uniqueness. (20/11/2017)

Kirsten Dunst has been in films under the direction of Sofia for two decades and each film is a delight. Now, for the first time, they've invited Nicole to join them. The result? A wonderful visual experience told at its own pace, with only diegetic music. (11/08/2017)

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. (01/10/2017)

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. (11/07/2017)

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. (01/02/2018)

Sofia Coppola made a visually captivating film in which there is not much to criticize in terms of styling, costumes and sets, helped by the actors who played their parts well. I especially liked Kirsten, who I thought was beautiful in the background, although she almost seemed dumb, which doesn't feel right for her, but she played it well. However, I’m not the least bit surprised when it comes to Nicole. (05/10/2017)