The Beguiled (2017)

In her movie based on Thomas Cullinan's novel, is Sofia Coppola commenting on the fortitude and independence of women as men all around them tear each other apart in the American Civil War, or suggesting women make really bad rash decisions in the absence of men, or is Coppola's equally celebrated and lamented light touch as a director in fact a fear of saying anything at all, and had Annie Wilkes hobbled Paul Sheldon to save his life, would 'Misery' have been a thriller of greater psychological depth, are the sorts of questions that come up while watching this beautifully acted, stunningly photographed (the scene in which Kirsten Dunst picks flowers in the overgrown garden of a great southern plantation house is alone worth the price of admission), occasionally amusing, but mystifying and very slight, slice of feminist, no, anti-feminist, no, fem...gothic period drama.

★★★★☆

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