george.schmidt Review of The Beguiled

The Beguiled (2017)

Beautifully filmed but the most unnecessary remake since PSYCHO (and virtually a beat-by-beat one as well)

[6/10 · 24 June 2017]

THE BEGUILED (2017) ** Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Oona Laurence, Angourie Rice, Addison Riecke, Emma Howard. Unnecessary remake to Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood's Southern Gothic classic about a Civil War era tale of unbridled passion and revenge. To wit - injured Northern soldier Farrell finds solace in a girls' school led by a repressed woman (Kidman very far too low-key) and her unworldly charges chomping at the bit to be with their new guest. While filmmaker Sofia Coppola -who also adapted the Thoma Cullinan's novel - pulls out all the stops with handsome cinematography by Philippe Le Sourd and impeccable production design by Anne Ross the film is basically a beat-by-beat carbon copy of the original 1971 film adding nothing truly new to the story with decidedly mixed results (outside of the principal well-known leads the supporting cast is wan and interchangeable).