Synopsis
During the Civil War, at a Southern girls’ boarding school, young women take in an injured enemy soldier. As they provide refuge and tend to his wounds, the house is taken over with sexual tension and dangerous rivalries, and taboos are broken in an unexpected turn of events.
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Cast
- Colin FarrellCorporal McBurney
- Nicole KidmanMiss Martha
- Kirsten DunstEdwina
- Elle FanningAlicia
- Oona LaurenceAmy
- Angourie RiceJane
- Addison RieckeMarie
- Emma HowardEmily
- Wayne PéreCaptain
- Matt StoryConfederate Soldier
Recommendations
- 91
IndieWire
The Beguiled is a lurid, sweltering, and sensationally fun potboiler that doesn’t find Coppola leaving her comfort zone so much as redecorating it with a fresh layer of soft-core scuzz. - 90
Screen Daily
The film consistently works as both a straightforward psychosexual thriller and something more troubling — almost unspoken — underneath. - 83
The Film Stage
Coppola and her production team — including The Grandmaster cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd — have created a fully realized world of eroticism, humidity, and Southern Gothic atmosphere. The characters are simply engulfed by it, almost to the point that even the twisted willow trees appear to be reaching out to grab them. - 80
CineVue
It has a powdery dryness, a sly wit which is indeed beguiling. - 80
The Guardian
Coppola tells the story with terrific gusto and insouciant wit, tying together images from the first scene and the last, so that the narrative satisfyingly snaps shut. - 80
The Telegraph
It’s every inch a group achievement, and the film’s best scenes are its ensemble ones: prayers before bedtime, musical recitals, meals by candlelight. - 80
Time Out
The Beguiled has its jolts and its laughs, but mostly this glides along like a mildly saucy yet poetically made parable, well-dressed, well-designed and well-performed. - 80
New York Magazine (Vulture)
Coppola’s The Beguiled doesn’t have the southern-gothic kick of its predecessor. It’s not a horror movie. Its power is in its undercurrents, in the sense that what we’re seeing isn’t inevitable but a sort of worst-case scenario of genders in opposition. No one is wholly good or bad. Both sides are beguiled.
