Review | Film review: The Beguiled – Sofia Coppola’s American civil war remake lacks bite of Siegel/Eastwood original
Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst star in an updated but sanitised and lust-free version of Eastwood’s 1971 story of a wounded soldier hiding out in an all-girl school
2.5/5 stars
Although it has lashings of antebellum atmosphere, writer-director Sofia Coppola’s remake of the 1971 Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood American civil war drama The Beguiled lacks the malicious bite it needs.
Defanged and bowdlerised, it’s been stripped of the sexual potency and libidinous psychology of the original film – which was based on Thomas Cullen’s novel, A Painted Devil – and turned into a parlour piece. The new film does work on its own restrained terms, but it seems like an unnecessary exercise in redoing what’s been done much better in the past.
Colin Farrell plays McBurney, a Union soldier who’s wounded while fighting the Confederate rebels in the south. McBurney ends up sheltering in a school for young southern ladies run by Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman). Although they plan to hand him over to Confederate troops, the presence of a man stirs the sexual desires of the girls, and they decide to let him stay while he recovers.