The Beguiled
2017 · Directed by Sofia Coppola
Original language: English
- drama
The story
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.
What it’s like
Warm candlelit interiors and soft filtered daylight drenched in green, with Sofia Coppola's signature stillness: long, unhurried shots through tall windows, symmetrical framing of the house's corridors and dining table, and a slow zoom into faces that rarely blink. The sensory world is humid and overgrown, with dripping Spanish moss, the hush of a shuttered parlour, and the faint clatter of cutlery against porcelain. Thomas Newman's sparse piano and string cues appear only sparingly, leaving long stretches of ambient quiet and the sound of crickets at night. The vibe is languid, simmering and quietly unsettling, a pressure-cooker of repressed desire and jealousy that builds through glances and gestures rather than action. It suits a slow evening alone, a dim room with the lamp on, or a moody comfort watch for those who like period drama with a cool, observant distance. Violence is almost entirely offscreen and brief; there is some sexual content and a few sharp, uncomfortable moments of cruelty, and the dread comes from tension rather than gore. Best for viewers who enjoy patient, character-driven drama about power, loneliness and desire.
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