The Beguiled (2017 film)

The Beguiled is a 2017 American Southern Gothic thriller film written and directed by Sofia Coppola, based on the 1966 novel by Thomas P. Cullinan.

It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 24, 2017,[4] and was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in its main competition section,[5][6] where Coppola became just the second woman to win the Best Director award (after Yuliya Solntseva in 1961).

While out in the woods searching for mushrooms, the youngest student Amy comes across John McBurney, a corporal in the Union Army who was wounded in the leg during battle, and has since deserted.

While McBurney is recovering, the women and girls subtly vie for his affection by giving him presents, wearing jewelry, and preparing a lavish dinner for him.

The film is based on the 1966 book of the same name by author Thomas P. Cullinan about a wounded Union soldier in a Mississippi seminary during the American Civil War,[8] and was made for under $10 million.

[8] Coppola had initially expressed an aversion to a remake, but after watching the 1971 version at the urging of production designer Anne Ross, she was left contemplating ways she could update the film.

Coppola has said that she "wanted the film to represent an exaggerated version of all the ways women were traditionally raised there just to be lovely and cater to men—the manners of that whole world, and how they change when the men go away."

[13] Based on a Magnificat from Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine, the music for the film was composed by the rock band Phoenix (whose lead singer, Thomas Mars, is married to Coppola).

The website's critics consensus reads, "The Beguiled adds just enough extra depth to its source material to set itself apart, and director Sofia Coppola's restrained touch is enlivened by strong performances from the cast.

"[28] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter stated: "Other than to place slightly more emphasis on the female empowerment angle ... it's hard to detect a strong raison d'etre behind Sofia Coppola's slow-to-develop melodrama.

[8] Coppola responded to these allegations by stating that she made the changes so as "not [to] brush over such an important topic in a light way," and that "[y]oung girls watch my films and this was not the depiction of an African American character I would want to show them.

"[30] She furthermore cited the presence of young girls among her moviegoing audience,[8] and described her version of the film as a reinterpretation, rather than a remake, of Don Siegel's 1971 adaption of the same book.

[8] Coppola wanted to tell the story of the male soldier entering into a classically southern and female environment from the point of view of the women in order to represent that experience.

The Beguiled was also made as a contrast to The Bling Ring, and Coppola has explained the need to correct that film's harsh Los Angeles aesthetic with something more beautiful and poetic.

The Madewood Plantation House
Colin Farrell, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Sofia Coppola, Nicole Kidman, Youree Henley, and Angourie Rice at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival