The Beguiled (15.)
Directed by Sofia Coppola.
Starring Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell, Elle Fanning and Oona Laurence. 95 mins.
Given Hollywood's desire to disinter anything from the past that was successful, it's amazing that nobody ever remakes Clint Eastwood films. (Other than a very honourable Japanese version of Unforgiven.) We have not seen a Hugh Jackman Dirty Harry, a Duwayne Johnson Every Which Way But Loose or even a Leonardo DiCaprio version of the Outlaw Josey Wales, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Now we have Farrell, ever so discretely, not so's you'd notice, filling Eastwood's shoes in Coppola's version of his 1971 tale of a wounded Yankee soldier during the civil war being looked after by the staff and students at an all girls school in Virginia.
Coppola approach to movie making has always been to set a mood and stick with it. Coppola has her cameraman Philippe Le Sourd (Grandmaster, Seven Pounds) douse everything in heavy Southern Gothic: the Doric columns of the boarding house, the beams of sunshine fingering through the oppressive fecundity of the lush woodland and overhanging branches. Most things are shot in a bleary mush, with faces often obscured and the background a blur. It's like a drowsy Tennessee Williams rocking on the porch and getting a hazy premonition of Tim Burton.
The film is a great dreamy chamber piece but there isn't much to it. The soldier's arrival stirs the repressed passion in the ladies and even from his position in bed he begins to exert a hold over them. The women and the girls all flirt with him or deny their attraction to him, Farrell tries to manipulate their affections. It's like Misery, if Misery had been set in a nunnery and had been a little more even handed.
Coppola wanted to tell the story from the women's angle but it's still a classic male fantasy: the male fantasy that ultimately no woman can be trusted. Shot for beautiful shot, performance for marvellous performance, this may be a better version of Thomas P. Cullinan's 1966 novel than the original, but it doesn't really have the impact. Back in the early 70s a pre-Dirty Harry/ post Man with No Name Eastwood and manly man director Don Siegal handling this material had a real edge to it. Coppola's version is a picture book pretty costume drama that's occasionally a bit creepy.
Directed by Sofia Coppola.
Starring Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell, Elle Fanning and Oona Laurence. 95 mins.
Given Hollywood's desire to disinter anything from the past that was successful, it's amazing that nobody ever remakes Clint Eastwood films. (Other than a very honourable Japanese version of Unforgiven.) We have not seen a Hugh Jackman Dirty Harry, a Duwayne Johnson Every Which Way But Loose or even a Leonardo DiCaprio version of the Outlaw Josey Wales, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Now we have Farrell, ever so discretely, not so's you'd notice, filling Eastwood's shoes in Coppola's version of his 1971 tale of a wounded Yankee soldier during the civil war being looked after by the staff and students at an all girls school in Virginia.
Coppola approach to movie making has always been to set a mood and stick with it. Coppola has her cameraman Philippe Le Sourd (Grandmaster, Seven Pounds) douse everything in heavy Southern Gothic: the Doric columns of the boarding house, the beams of sunshine fingering through the oppressive fecundity of the lush woodland and overhanging branches. Most things are shot in a bleary mush, with faces often obscured and the background a blur. It's like a drowsy Tennessee Williams rocking on the porch and getting a hazy premonition of Tim Burton.
The film is a great dreamy chamber piece but there isn't much to it. The soldier's arrival stirs the repressed passion in the ladies and even from his position in bed he begins to exert a hold over them. The women and the girls all flirt with him or deny their attraction to him, Farrell tries to manipulate their affections. It's like Misery, if Misery had been set in a nunnery and had been a little more even handed.
Coppola wanted to tell the story from the women's angle but it's still a classic male fantasy: the male fantasy that ultimately no woman can be trusted. Shot for beautiful shot, performance for marvellous performance, this may be a better version of Thomas P. Cullinan's 1966 novel than the original, but it doesn't really have the impact. Back in the early 70s a pre-Dirty Harry/ post Man with No Name Eastwood and manly man director Don Siegal handling this material had a real edge to it. Coppola's version is a picture book pretty costume drama that's occasionally a bit creepy.
