YOU’VE GOT MALE
Colin Farrell gives some Southern ladies the vapours in an old story with a new viewpoint
Sofia Coppola has adapted fiction (The Virgin Suicides), and nonfiction (The Bling Ring, based on a Vanity Fair article), but she has never attempted a remake until now. Mind you, she has equivocated on whether The Beguiled actually is a remake. She’s seen the 1971 original, directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood, but says her real inspiration was the 1966 source novel by Thomas P. Cullinan.
Nevertheless, both movies have a very similar look and feel. It’s 1864, and a gravely injured Union soldier (Colin Farrell in this version), staggers into the woods outside Miss Farnsworth’s Ladies’ Seminary in Virginia, and is rescued by young Amy (Oona Laurence). She brings him back to the house, where the consensus is that to hand him over to the Confederates in his condition would be a death sentence. More Christian to nurse him back to health, then turn him in.
But Corporal John McBurney is a crafty fellow, and a silver-tongued flatterer to boot, although Coppola’s dialogue sometimes has him sounding more like a 21st-century man trying to pass in the 19th than a Yankee in the South. Once his leg heals he’ll offer to make himself useful as a gardener and general labourer; until then, he does his best to worm his way into as many of his captives’ affections as possible. They are a fascinating, varied bunch. In addition to a number of small fry there are three precisely spaced generations of women. Alicia (Elle Fanning, age 19), is a headstrong student. Edwina (Kirsten Dunst, 35), is one of the teachers, nursing a quiet grief. And Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman, who just turned 50), is the steely headmistress. Farrell (41 if you’re still keeping track), is at just the right age to be an object of interest for them all. And he knows it.
Thus we have the setup for a chess-like battle of the sexes, although just who is playing the part of the pawn at any given moment is a subject for debate.
The Beguiled certainly is weirdly pitched at times. Early scenes in both versions of the film feature drifting smoke and the nearby sounds of cannon fire, reminders that the war was taking place practically outside the school’s gates. But within the seemingly safe confines of the house, the females are free to bicker and boast almost comically over whose pie John is enjoying.
Alicia made the dish. “From my recipe!” adds Edwina. “I picked the apples!” pipes up Amy.
And so on. Kidman’s deadpan delivery of “Bring me the anatomy book” at a crucial plot juncture had audiences at Cannes hooting with half-derisive, half-appreciative laughter.
Things take a more serious turn in the film’s second half, as the melodrama becomes decidedly less mellow, and everyone — Kidman and Farrell especially — is allowed to bare their teeth a little. But it’s an oddly uneven goosing of the dramatic engine — you can almost feel Coppola dithering between letting loose with the Southern Gothic madness or clamping down on it.
Ultimately, The Beguiled is a more modern, nuanced and feminist take on the tale than the lurid, vaguely pervy original — in which, among other things, Eastwood plants a creepy kiss on his 12-year-old rescuer. Although it’s a fair bet that few modern audiences will have seen both — 1971’s Beguiled, earning little more than a million dollars at the box office, wasn’t even Clint’s top film of the year, falling behind Dirty Harry and Play Misty for Me.