THE BEGUILED Marks a Return To Form

(Don’t do it, Ryan.)

(I’m not joking. It’s hacky. It’s corny to the point that you trying to couch it by first writing a cute couple of lines acknowledging what you’re about to do is also hacky. It might actually be worse.)

(Sigh….)

Webster’s Dictionary defines “beguile” as “to deceive by wiles”, “to lead by deception", quite literally “hoodwink”. It follows, then, that to be beguiled means to be hoodwinked, to be deceived by false appearance.

THE BEGUILED, then, is a movie title that gives you a sense of the entire story before a frame has run through the projector (I’m not sure film really works like that, anymore, but…you get the imagery). Sofia Coppola’s sixth film, which both reunites her with a couple of her former leads AND allows her to collaborate with two modern powerhouses for the first time, deals directly with what happens when a deceiver enters a space of isolation through cowardly means and begins to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting.

It’s also a period piece, a suspense tale set in the American South smack dab in the middle of the Civil War, a time when pretty much everybody walked around with a significant amount of tension, distrust, and anxiety at all times. One could also make the argument that Coppola is dabbling in allegorical story-telling; many of the images and blocking in this movie seems drenched in double-meanings (there’s a lot of tilling of soil, much pruning of branches).

More than anything else, though, THE BEGUILED marks both a relieving return to form for Coppola after a confusing mini-disaster in THE BLING RING, while still representing something different altogether from her. Even if it doesn’t always work 100% of the time, it all at least hangs together. This is a victory in and of itself.

THE BEGUILED (2017)

Starring: Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell, Elle Fanning, Angourie Rice

Directed by: Sofia Coppola

Written by: Coppola

Released: June 23, 2017

Length: 97 minutes

Based off a 1966 Thomas P. Cullinan novel of the same name, and previously made as a 1971 Don Siegel movie starring Clint Eastwood, THE BEGUILED tells the story of a sparsely populated Virginian girls’ school in 1864, ran by Martha Farnsworth (Kidman) and staffed by just one other adult, Edwina Morrow (Dunst). As Edwina teaches the five students French, the Civil War rages ever on in the background.

One fateful morning, one of Edwina’s young students, Amy (Oona Laurence), makes an odd discovery while picking mushrooms: a wounded Union deserter, Corporal John McBurney (Farrell). After some debate whether to turn or take him in, Martha allows McBurney inside the school in order to rest and recuperate. This decision ultimately comes at a cost, as McBurney starts slowly and methodically seducing each of the girls, as he shows a talent for showing only the parts of himself he thinks the woman in front of him needs to see (psychologically speaking, not physically. It’s not that kind of movie).

His charm turns to violence as he gets busted sleeping with teenage Alicia (Fanning) by Edwina, whom he had previously declared his love to. Edwina responds by pushing him down a flight of stairs, which wounds his leg to the point of amputation (whether this amputation is truly medically necessary, or merely an act of revenge is a deliberately unanswered point of contention). He’s furious, the women are trapped, and the story shifts to one about how one removes the wolf from the hen house.

In many ways, THE BEGUILED almost plays like a Best Of Sofia Coppola movie, with elements of her past films all mixed together to create something new. There’s Kirsten Dunst! There’s Elle Fanning! There’s that palpable PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK aesthetic and tension at play again! Oh, is that the French language I hear?

And yet, many pillars and tenets of what a typical Sofia Coppola movie looks like is almost entirely absent here. No longing, colorful, fast-paced looks at wealth here. In fact, THE BEGUILED is almost entirely shrouded in darkness in its key moments (a decision that I have mixed feelings about, more on that in a second!). Even though it clocks in at her typical 90 or so minutes, its pace is quite intentionally slow and methodical.

Yet many of her themes remain. Loneliness. The want for freedom. The repression of desire. And perhaps no single character best exemplifies those classic Coppola themes than Edwina, the schoolteacher. All of the girls at the school develop feelings of some sort for McBurney, but Edwina is the one who most obviously falls in love with him. She’s a woman who’s lost in her current role, with no real future ahead of her. War surrounds her. She’s just a schoolteacher, and that’s all she’ll ever be. Then comes this handsome, somewhat dangerous Corporal. Even though it’s clear he’s writing her a check he has no intention of cashing, a large part of her wants to believe it. She has to; it’s her only chance at another kind of life.

This isn’t my original observation, and I do not remember exactly where I first saw it, but it’s worth aggregating it anyway; THE BEGUILED completes the Sofia Coppola Trilogy of Movies Where Kirsten Dunst Plays A Character Who’s Trapped In A Social System With No Easy Way Out Of It (the first two, of course, being THE VIRGIN SUICIDES and MARIE ANTOINETTE). Here, it might be that archetype at its most heartbreaking. She wants so badly, maybe more than any of the other women at the school, to believe McBurney and his seductions. Even to the very end, as McBurney’s deadly dinner begins, it’s not clear to us as an audience if she’s going to actually eat the poison mushrooms and die alongside him (whether she does or not, I’ll leave for you to experience).

It shouldn’t be surprising that Coppola keeps going back to Dunst for these kind of roles. She’s good at them. Dunst is really, really skilled at communicating heartbreak and desire non-verbally and always has been (she’s a big reason those Raimi SPIDER-MAN movies have the emotional punch that they do), which makes her a valuable tool in Coppola’s workbox. We’ve actually reached the end of their collaborations, at least as of this writing (Dunst isn’t in ON THE ROCKS or the upcoming PRISCILLA). One has to imagine there’s more to come on that front. One day.

Another pleasant standout is our sole male lead, Colin Farrell.

Farrell is a guy whose presence has been interesting to grow up around. I distinctly remember that period in the 2000’s where it felt like he was everywhere. As a young man, he had a knack for picking the exact right, fun project (MINORITY REPORT, MIAMI VICE, IN BRUGES) except for when he didn’t (PHONE BOOTH and DAREDEVIL to pick just a couple). He also had a very distinct bad boy reputation, and was at the center of one of the only entertaining and interesting moments in Jay Leno’s TONIGHT SHOW tenure (naturally, it never aired). And now, here he is at the age of 41 (at least at the time THE BEGUILED was released), and all of a sudden a different kind of guy has emerged. Farrell is now a man who connotes danger without living it, a man with that great combination of handsome and seasoned.

All of that to say that, as far as the only main male role in the entire film, Colin Farrell is the exact right fucking choice in 2017 for Corporal McBurney, a man who has to be both many things to many people AND ultimately a man only interested in himself. It’s a tough role to play, but Farrell is maybe one of the only leading men in his current age bracket that could pull it off. It requires a guy who can be charming in an understated way; McBurney is never a “light up the room the second he enters it” kind of man. He’s more of a “slowly nestle his way into your soul” kind of man. Yet, he also needs to be able to provide that believable rage when pushed and cornered. Near the end, McBurney starts dipping into horror movie villain territory, ranting and raving and carrying on while our core women leads are locked in a room, waiting for the tempest to pass.

You basically need to both believe him when he’s charming AND when he’s insane. With age on his side, Farrell’s the guy. We’re lucky to have him.

———

On the matter of how the movie is shot and its relationship with literal darkness, I can’t decide if it’s an exercise of form over function. Yes, it makes a lot of sense that the movie would be only lightly lit. The symbolism of the house being covered in shadow once McBurney enters it (as well as the follow-through in thought of key exterior shots being shot through the leaves of a tree) is clear and easy to track. And, of course, the dinner scenes lit only by candlelight evokes a technique mastered by Stanley Kubrick 40 years prior.

On the other hand….well, the movie is hard to see! I know it sounds stupid, but that matters! To be perfectly honest, THE BEGUILED is on Netflix as I write this, and it’s how I screened it for myself. I was ready to blame my visual issues on a touched-up streaming upload or something, so I was somewhat relieved to hear that one of the top Google results for “THE BEGUILED” is “Why is THE BEGUILED filmed so dark?”. For a movie that rests a lot of its storytelling on quiet moments, glances, and facial expressions…bust out a couple more candles, that’s all I’m saying.

(Note: this could be all the result of some setting on my screen that I’m overlooking. Let me know if you had this issue when you watched it, too.)

———

Something I’ve been avoiding mentioning this entire article, minus a brief mention near its beginning, is the 1971 version of this same story which, again, starred Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page in the Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman roles, respectively. Normally, whenever there’s a prior version of a movie I’m reviewing, I have no problem comparing them directly. For instance, 1991’s CAPE FEAR is a direct remake of the 60’s original; therefore, it seems fair to be able to view them side-by-side and judge them accordingly.

Here, though, up until the very last minute, I hadn’t even watched Siegel’s version of the Cullinan novel because Coppola isn’t technically remaking his movie. She’s just taking another crack at the same source material. So it didn’t seem fair to compare them. Yet….curiosity got the better of me and I ultimately fit in an opportunity to sneak in a viewing (one of the big reasons this article is coming out a day late).

And…well, I liked it better.

It’s not an overwhelming victory or anything, and it doesn’t necessarily invalidate Coppola’s vision; a lot of the differences between the two simply come down to style choices. The story remains largely the same. However, there are some notable departures that Coppola takes that gives one pause (although I think they’re slightly defendable).

The first thing to point out is that there’s a female slave character, Millie, in the 1971 BEGUILED that Coppola excised completely from the 2017 version. This doesn’t exactly help her beat the allegations that she tells stories from a strictly white (and privileged) perspective, something that has plagued her since the LOST IN TRANSLATION controversy. On one hand, it’s a shame; Mae Mercer brings a lot of humanity to the role (she actually gets one my favorite lines and moments in the whole thing; “You better like it with a died black woman. Because, that's the only way you'll get it from this one”), and I think bringing race in as a component adds even more dis-ease to the story, especially considering it’s a Civl War tale set in the South (with its villain a coward Union soldier). On the other, I think it’s reasonable to assume Coppola simply didn’t think she had anything to provide to the race angle and thought better to avoid it altogether (and considering the tense implications of Millie’s presence in the story, something that could have gone even worse for Coppola if she had bungled it).

All things being equal, it would be nice if Sofia Coppola had some deep insight to provide in regards to race. But she doesn’t. If she did, she would have done so by now. Thus, it doesn’t seem like the scathing indictment people think it is to continue to point out that “she only tells stories about white people!”. I think she knows. Frankly, it’s part of her style at this point. Anyone continuing to watch her movies looking for that kind of insight, when there are twenty-plus other directors that can, feels like torturing yourself on purpose. It’s what it is.

The second, and bigger in my opinion, is that the 2017 BEGUILED frames the story from the perspective of the women. This wouldn’t seem to be a huge deal; after all, there’s only one man in the whole movie (more or less). The thing is, though, that I think Corporal McBurney might be the most compelling character in the whole thing (save for arguably Edwina). Yes, the women are the ones who are changed from the experience, so it would make sense to put the dramatic focus on them. But, when you have such a bizarre and dark central character provided to you, sometimes you gotta roll with it. Focusing on McBurney and his headspace is a large reason why Siegel’s version has such an offbeat and unforgettable vibe (well, that and the incest subplot….it sort of makes sense in context….you should just watch it.) Coppola’s version lacks a punch by comparison.

(Also, it doesn’t do the 2017 version any favors that Geraldine Page blows Nicole Kidman out of the water in terms of performances. I hadn’t brought up the Coppola version’s biggest star yet up for a reason, and it’s because Kidman made no impression on me whatsoever. Considering she used to be one of the most compelling leading women we had, this was rattling for me.)

AND YET. Unlike THE BLING RING, THE BEGUILED has ideas and a point of view and a palpable artistic vision. This was a relief to me, because Sofia Coppola obviously means something to me. I wouldn’t have dedicated my summer to her movies and inspirations if she didn’t! It sucked to see her take such an artless turn seemingly out of nowhere. If nothing else, THE BEGUILED at least showed me that she hadn’t lost it.

But, you know….you should watch both versions. Just because.

Getting Lost in the Middle of SOMEWHERE

People often ask me, “why do you primarily focus on chronological filmography reviews on your blog?”

(All right, nobody’s ever asked me that. About the only question anybody ever asks me in regards to the blog is, “why do you keep trying to get me to read one of those SANTA CLAUSE articles?”. But just for the sake of storytelling technique, let’s just pretend I get this question a lot. Theater of the mind and all that.)

Okay, so people often ask me, “why do you primarily focus on chronological filmography reviews on your blog?” And the simple answer is that I enjoy the simple thrill I get of charting growth from even the medium’s most established filmmakers. It can even provide context to movies that are already pretty well-regarded; something like Fellini’s JULIET OF THE SPIRITS is a monumental work on its own, but when taken within the full context of LA STRADA, NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, as well as his relationship with the star of all three, Giulietta Masina, it becomes a masterpiece of almost jaw-dropping audacity.

It’s just fun to see creators grow. When you go through a director’s filmography from start to finish, you start discovering things both big and small. What they did to get their first hit. What they do when their budget gets increased (or taken away)*. But, more than anything, you start notice the things they learn from their bigger successes or failures and start carrying with them going into some of their smaller films.

(*I think a lot of this is why the BLANK CHECK podcast, a show with more or less this exact premise, has been such a runaway success the past half-decade or so.)

So it goes with SOMEWHERE, a Sofia Coppola film that you don’t hear a ton about for whatever reason. It came out in 2010, which I wouldn’t really call a banner year for American film. Not that it’s the ultimate arbiter of quality, but the Best Picture nominees that year included THE KING’S SPEECH, THE FIGHTER, BLACK SWAN, and 127 HOURS, four well-received movies that I bet you hadn’t thought about once in the past ten years.

Yet it felt like SOMEWHERE just kind of came and went. I’m not even sure I remember hearing about it at all, and I was still firmly in my "keep tabs on this kind of stuff” era (my beloved Entertainment Weekly at my side most of the time. It certainly seems to be a faded memory in Coppola’s fairly scant filmography. THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, LOST IN TRANSLATION and MARIE ANTOINETTE all still loom large after all these years. But SOMEWHERE kind of went nowhere.

And it’s a shame because it’s terrific, and certainly belongs in the same echelon as her first three. More to the point, SOMEWHERE is the exact type of movie that ends up shining like a jewel when watched in the context of what a given filmmaker had done before.

In isolation, it’s a small character-driven odyssey in the desert of Hollywood. On the backs of the movies mentioned above, however? Sofia Coppola’s growth as a filmmaker from the end of the 90’s to the beginning of the Roarin’ 10’s is fully on display here, and it’s a wonder to behold.

Let’s dig into why.

SOMEWHERE (2010)

Directed by: Sofia Coppola

Starring: Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, Chris Pontius

Written by: Sofia Coppola

Released: December 22, 2010

Length: 98 minutes

Johnny Marco (Dorff) is a rising Hollywood actor crashing indefinitely at the Chateau Marmont, healing from an unexplained wrist injury. Passing the time between publicity obligations, he invites strippers over to his room, has casual sex with younger women, and kinda just hangs out with his childhood friend Sammy (Pontius). His marriage is long over, and he’s not exactly making a ton of new friends in his chosen industry; his most recent costar (played by a micro-cameoing Michelle Monaghan) fucking hates him after a failed night together.

Johnny is just nowhere.

In between all of these passionless activities, he does his perfunctory divorced-dad duties for his eleven-year old daughter Cleo (Fanning), He takes her to her ice-skating lesson, he drives her to things when her mom isn’t able to, he’s technically there. But it’s just one more checked box for him and nothing more. It’s not out of malice (he doesn’t seem to resent Cleo in any way), it’s just…it’s one more thing that fails to bring Johnny any meaningful happiness.

The “meat” of the movie is when Cleo gets dropped off at his door when her mom decides she needs a break. This coincides with a European leg of his promo tour for his new movie. Johnny has to make the most of this unexpected family time before Cleo goes off to summer camp. So….can he?

Admittedly, this all sounds a little dull written out. A movie about a burned-out actor who now has to connect with his precocious daughter, and maybe along the way he learns something. It all sounds like well-worn material at best, twee and annoying at worst.

Of course, the game gets played on the court, not on paper. Because the above forms the basis of one of Coppola’s more thrilling and underrated works, in no small part because it feels like she’s returning to what made her early movies work so well. Although I will never begrudge a director going in a completely different direction between films*, SOMEWHERE does feel like the natural successor to LOST IN TRANSLATION.

(* In some ways, her “return to form” for her fourth feature made me respect and appreciate just a half-inch more the expansion of her style palette in MARIE ANTOINETTE.)

The parallels between the two films are numerous; they are both about burned-out actors at a crossroads (although I would classify Bob Harris as more aloof and lost, while Johnny is truly a Fucking Loser when we first meet him), both feature leads living long term in a hotel, both leads find themselves desperately trying to connect with a younger girl (in SOMEWHERE’s case, it’s Johnny’s own daughter), and both films drip with ennui. Oh, and in their own ways, they’re about the mundanity and borderline humiliating nature of professional acting.

What struck me about SOMEWHERE is that it truly felt like Coppola showing us how sharp the knives in her tool belt really are. She’s come a long way in just four films, especially considering her debut (THE VIRGIN SUICIDES) was plenty strong already. She’s never been a director afraid to show off a little style, to say the least; both VIRGIN SUICIDES and MARIE ANTOINETTE told its stories with some visual heft. Here, though, she goes for a more austere style. It was the correct and perfect choice.

As a result, SOMEWHERE has a palpable confidence to it. Here, Coppola has visual storytelling down to a science, to the point where anyone claiming this movie is “boring” (and, oh goodness, are they out there) is almost actively trying not to pay attention. Coppola tells you the entire story of Johnny, the way he’s passively cruel to the people around him, the ways in which his supposed success in an impossible industry has only exacerbated his depressive state, the way he can’t ever seem to take the obvious steps to get out of his own way.

The best part is that Coppola communicates all of this in really simple ways.

Take something like the two scenes that bookend SOMEWHERE, which both boil down to Johnny just kind of driving around. The opening scene: Johnny driving in long, slow, drawn-out circles in the middle of nowhere. The ending scene, after he really and truly does forge a connection and genuine bond with Cleo: Johnny driving in a straight line on a road to…well, we don’t really know. It’s to somewhere (cue that Leonardo DiCaprio pointing the screen meme). All we know is that it’s away from the hotel he’s been wasting away at. It’s in a direction, and maybe that’s enough.

It’s not a reinvention of the wheel by any means. It’s super simple, almost to an absurd degree. It’s Film 101. And yet, it’s also crystal-clear storytelling to a degree you almost never see in the twenty-first century. Without a syllable of dialogue (hell, in the opening scene, you don’t even get a good look at Stephen Dorff), you get exactly what’s up when we start, as well as the significance of where we end.

The whole movie plays off with this kind of simple confidence. Early on, we’re treated to an extended shot of a somewhat awkward and monotonous pole dance (to the tune of Foo Fighters’ “My Hero”) going on in Johnny’s hotel room. It’s, um, technically sound and it’s certainly synchronized, but Coppola’s refusal to really cut away from it, like she’s Chantal Akerman all of a sudden, serves to remove the luridness from it all. Instead, it feels vaguely sad. We don’t get anything resembling titillation, and neither does Johnny.

Then there’s the scene of Johnny getting his head sculpted for a special effect on his next film. He’s called in by the special effects team of his latest movie to sit in a chair for several hours as they cover his entire head in plaster in order to make a mold of his face for some sort of practical effect. His eyes, his ears, his mouth and, eventually, his nose (sans two little holes for his nostrils).

And then, as they wait for the mold to dry, the makeup team just kinda….leaves. The camera zooms in slowly as we wait for something to happen. The only soundtrack is the sound of Johnny breathing as deeply as he can, given the circumstances. A lone phone ringing breaks the silence, confirming that everyone has moved on for the moment.

Again, super simple in that perfect “why didn’t I think of that?” way. There are few better ways to establish building tension than with a slooowww, silent close-up; it’s done so effectively that out of context, it genuinely seems like something from a horror movie. But it helps to both further Johnny’s story along (this is what his life has been reduced to, sitting alone, unable to connect, at risk of being molded over and forgotten) as well as serve as metaphor for the suffocating effects of Hollywood*.

(*It’s also a reminder that many of your favorite actors have had to go through this ridiculous process, and for a lot longer than Johnny does here. Jim Carrey had to sit in the makeup chair for 8 hours to do the fucking Grinch movie, in case you’re wondering why he’s been off the rails seemingly ever since.)

Just through the nature of the film’s content, we’ve talked about actors in this article already. So let’s pivot to talking about the three people we spend the most time with in SOMEWHERE.

Stephen Dorff is an actor I don’t really think about all that often, which is admittedly kind of an asshole way to open up a paragraph meant to praise him. What I mean by it, however, is that was able to take me by complete surprise here. His big claim to fame is probably as the villain in 1998’s BLADE, or maybe more recently from the third season of TRUE DETECTIVE. But he seems to have mostly made his trade by appearing in genre fare. Coppola picked him for this role basically both due to his supposed bad-boy exterior and the sweet, almost shy interior, both of which would be great tools for this particular movie.

Mission totally accomplished there. You buy him so completely as this guy who’s completely burned out and in need of a change that’s he incapable of providing to himself. Dorff just becomes Johnny, one of the finest compliments you can give to a performance. For whatever reason, I keep reflecting back on the moment where he’s kind of stumbling through an awkward press conference, where he seems incapable of providing a satisfying answer to even the most softball question. It’s one of those “can’t see the acting” moments.

Elle Fanning, famously the younger sister to Dakota, holds her own as Cleo and portrays a strength and maturity beyond her years in her scenes with Dorff. Coppola allegedly screened PAPER MOON for Dorff, presumably as a reference point for him as to Johnny and Cleo’s dynamic. However, it feels for all the world like Fanning absorbed that Bogdanovich classic too, because she portrays her end of that dynamic better than could be expected for a performer of her age, More likely, this is another testament to Coppola’s maturing directing skills, a sign of her ability to pull exactly what she needed from her actors.

Out of fucking nowhere, Chris Pontius of JACKASS fame does a great job with a supporting role as Johnny’s friend Sammy. The ease in which Sammy relates to Cleo, is able to play and connect with her…Sammy is the guy Johnny could be if…well, if he weren’t Johnny. Pontius’ normal dude energy is actually what was needed here, and he provides a heartbreaking counterpoint to our lead.

———

It’s beyond weird, and vaguely condescending, to say you’re proud of an artist whom you have no personal connection to. But, damnit, I’m hard pressed to come up with another word for it. Especially for filmmakers with somewhat limited filmographies (she averages about a movie every four years; her upcoming PRISCILLA is only her seventh since THE VIRGIN SUICIDES came out in 1999), it’s so easy to lose the thread. And, to be honest, there’s still three left to go in this series, and they’re not well-loved classics. There’s still time to misplace that thread, Sofia!

But, at this point in her filmography, it feels like she’s only gaining strength. It’s really exciting to find a new favorite from someone who already provided me one of my favorite movies. If you haven’t checked out SOMEWHERE, consider doing so. It might be one of your new favorites as well.