Three stars. Rated R, and rather harshly, for fleeting sexuality
By Derrick Bang
As a setting, Southern Gothic is
a character in its own right: drooping, moss-draped trees enclosing antebellum
mansions, their white paint edged with gray and slightly peeling; a keening,
high-pitched whine of insects driven into a constant frenzy by shimmering heat;
the miasma of humidity so unrelenting that everything — flora, fauna and
dwellings — sags beneath a soggy layer of warm moisture, and the mere act of
drawing breath is a weary challenge.
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| Sensing that Edwina (Kirsten Dunst) is self-conscious about her appearance, McBurney (Colin Farrell) lavishes praise about her features and deportment, knowing full well that she'll melt under such flattery. |
A sense that evil spirits prowl
during a night so enveloping that stars and fireflies do little to keep the
darkness at bay.
Director/scripter Sofia Coppola’s
fresh adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s The
Beguiled certainly wins points for atmosphere. Cinematographer Philippe Le
Sourd frames every inch of production designer Anne Ross’ tableaus — interior
and exterior — with the reverence of a painter agonizing over each individual
brush stroke.
The characters in this unsettling
morality play also are well cast, with Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Colin
Farrell delivering a level of quiet intensity more frequently experienced with
a live Broadway performance. Which also feels appropriate, given that the
story’s claustrophobic setting could be realized equally well on a theater
stage.
Coppola directs her cast with a
sure hand, coaxing performances that fascinate just as much for their
protracted silences, as for carefully selected snatches of dialog. Kidman, in
particular, conveys a wealth of emotion during moments of circumspect silence.
If only Coppola’s script equaled
the rest of her film’s carefully assembled elements.
The tale unfolds in 1864, midway
through the Civil War, within the confines of the Farnsworth Seminary, a Southern
girls’ boarding school nestled deep in the Virginia woods. The institution is
run by Miss Martha (Kidman) and her colleague Edwina (Dunst); they share
classroom instruction and the daily reading of prayers.
The student population has
dwindled to five, all girls with nowhere else to go. Amy (Oona Laurence), Jane
(Angourie Rice), Marie (Addison Riecke) and Emily (Emma Howard) are adolescent,
vulnerable and trusting; teenage Alicia (Elle Fanning), hastening the onset of
a womanhood she has no means of embracing, carries a whiff of temptress about
her.
These seven have become a family,
Miss Martha just as much a surrogate mother as a formal teacher. The dynamic,
with its daily rituals, feels timeless; they may have sheltered in this vast
mansion for mere months, or perhaps years. (The action actually takes place at
the Louisiana-based Madewood Plantation House, also borrowed by Beyoncé for her
“Sorry” music video.)
