The Beguiled - Review

​The worst thing that could have happened to Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, is the availability of 1971 version. It’s on HBO and has been playing heavily in repertory cinemas. One can't help but compare and Coppola's version doesn't come out well in the comparison.

The story unfolds during the Civil War at a Southern girls’ boarding school. An injured Union soldier (Colin Farrell) is given refuge and tended to by the women at the school  including the headmistress Miss Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman), a prim teacher (Kirsten Dunst) and a very curious student (Elle Fanning). Sexual tension and dangerous rivalries supposedly happen.

Yet “antiseptic” is the word that came to my mind the most while watching this film. Where is this supposed sexual tension? Where are the rivalries that simmer with jealousy and danger? In adapting the original novel by Thomas Cullinan, and the 1971 script by Albert Maltz and Grimes Grice, Coppola said she wanted to shift the focus from the soldier to the women. Yet what she did was strip away all the passion and dial down the desire to almost non existence. Coppola took out the heat, fun and tangled relationships and loyalties and kinda added nothing. Even the amusing stuff we heard in the trailer occurs off screen. There are no “vengeful bitches” in this version. The movie just sits there, only at the very end does it spring to life. And then only briefly.

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Coppola has also erased the one black woman character from her adaptation, saying she didn’t want to deal “lightly” with slavery. It's fine if she doesn't want to depict slaves. But then why keep the American Civil War setting? Just move it to any other war and time, if all she wanted was to explore the dynamics between the white women. Any genteel isolated old timey society would've sufficed.

The actors are all good if dull. Dunst, in particular, doesn’t fare well. Her character should have the biggest arc, yet she’s not given the chance to unleash any fervor. Her performance is a slow burn that never lets it rip and ends without even a whimper. Not her fault but rather the writing and direction. Only Kidman understands what this story could be, and infuses her performance with mischievous archness. She should've been the auteur of this.

Oscar Season Bits & Pieces - Best Actress

Emmanuelle Riva

The Hollywood Reporter has released its annual Actress Round table which means that Oscar season is now in full swing. I always look forward to those because Best Actress is always my favourite category. This year looks to be a strong one; there are so many good movies already released and a couple of big mega movies just around the corner.

Let's dig by each category, the major ones of course. I'll provide my take and predictions. Let's start with  :

Best Actress - coming up Best Actor and  Best Supporting Actor
My vote goes to Emmanuelle Riva in Amour. What a performance : heartbreaking and full of moving melancholy and surprising strength. I hope she gets nominated. Going against her is that it's a foreign language film and even people who love it acknowledge that it is a difficult movie to sit through. It deals with inevitable decay, old age and death after all. Going for her is that everyone who sees the movie comes out marvelling at the performance.

Jennifer Lawrence

The pundits world would have you believe that Jennifer Lawrence is the front runner. I don't believe it. Don't get me wrong; I think Lawrence is the best thing about Silver Linings Playbook. I wanted to see more of her character; and therein lies the problem. It's a supporting role really. The story is Bradley Cooper's and she's there as his love interest. She's much better than him but because of how little she gets to do I don't think it's an Oscar winning performance. She has the big speech in her money scene and for that she'll be nominated. However even that speech's payoff is not emotional enough in my opinion. It kick starts the plot for the last third of the movie but does not affect the characters lives in a major way. I understand that Hollywood wants to reward her for The Hunger Games, she's young, hot and a box office draw. Still can't see this performance wining Best Actress.

Jessica Chastain

 I think this will be a match between Naomi Watts in The Impossible and Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty.Details of how big and central to the plot Chastain's role have just emerged. That got a lot of excitement. She has momentum from last year, not only for the nomination from The Help but for all the other movies she appeared in. Everyone acknowledges her as The Next Big Actress, set to join Meryl, Kate and Cate as a perennial Oscar nominee. Watts has lots of goodwill from her previous nomination plus she apparently gives a big emotional performance, suffers and cries a lot. Which she is fantastic at and why she was nominated for 21 Grams. A lot of people still talk about Mulholland Drive a decade after it was released, so lots of goodwill there. The problem with The Impossible is that the trailer is too manipulative, it dares you not to tear up. Is there a good movie behind that? Will people show up for suffering porn? If yes she will be unstoppable.

Marion Cotillard

Marion Cotillard is getting raves for Rust and Bone. I'll see it Friday, then I can make an informed decision. Although so far what I read seems to mixed with more praise going to her co-star  Matthias Schoenaerts. There is also young Quevenzhane Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild. She carries that unique lyrical movie on her little shoulders and for that she wil be rewarded. Keira Knightely is very good as Anna Karenina as she has been in her last few movies. But the response to that movie has been sharply divided. I loved it, it worked for me. 

Emayatzy Corinealdi

There are a few performances that are not getting much attention but are still amazing. Emayatzy Corinealdi gives a subtle piercing performance in Middle of Nowhere and announces herself as a major talent. Kirsten Dunst is all brittle edges and angry frustration in Bachelorette taking a highly unlikeable character , making her human while being very funny. And the most likeable celebrity presence on twitter, Melanie Lynskey,  gives a touching performance in Hello I Must Be Going. She made me palpably feel her disappointment and then her quiet resolve and tentative hope.

Predicted 5 : Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, Emmanuelle Riva, Quevenzhane Wallis, Naomi Watts.

Who do you think will be nominated? Tell all in the comments.

Movie Short Takes

After a summer traveling abroad I am back in New York and catching up with movies. Here are tiny reviews of movies I saw recently:  

The Dark Night Rises : Overpraised and very loud. I saw this on a lovely sunny day in Wales - there are so few of these - and I regretted leaving the sun to see it. Anne Hathaway was good and its always a pleasure to see Joseph Gordon Levitt but I had several problems with the movie. The politics were very muddled while trying to be topical; is the movie really against the Occupy movement? Christian Bale was doing the same tortured hero he always does; nothing new to see there. Tom Hardy was undermined by the mask covering half his face - really Chris Nolan you hire the biggest sexiest lips on a man in the movies and then hide them, really?

The Amazing Spider Man - Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield are very charming together. I totally bought their romance and the chemistry was combusting. The rest of the movie was just blah.

Magic Mike - In my mind the best movie I saw this year to date. It was very refreshing, amid the summer glut of super heroes; to see a character driven movie. Who would've thought this would be it? And I liked that it didn't glamorise striping; the ugly underbelly of drugs and self loathing was all there on screen. Channing Tatum proved his current omnipresence is justified with a charming, understated natural performance. Matthew McConaughey does what I think is a riff on his perceived public persona is wining and probably his best performance ever.


Ted - Opened the same weekend as Magic Mike as the above meme attests and it is perfect counter programing. I remember laughing a lot but can't remember any of the jokes or performances now. Apparently entertaining but not memorable.

Bachelorette - Another very funny movie. But more memorable. This movie about a trio of mean girls attending their fat friend's wedding carrying along years of resentment and dashed hopes is caustingly funny. Its also not afraid of honestly portraying its protagonists in all their loathsome qualities. While Kirsten Dunst is funny and brittle as the main mean girl, Lizzy Caplan steals the movie with an all out funny performance full of pathos as the girl who refuses to grow up lest she face her teenage demons.

More shorts takes coming soon about Fall movies The Master, Hello I Must Be Going and End of Watch.