Cannes: 'The Beguiled'

My expectations were low, given that I'm not a fan of the original, so I was fairly surprised at how watchable it was. Owen Gleiberman said it best in his review when describing the original: "it basically has the plot of a porn film."

I thought Sofia Coppola's "The Beguiled" was a slow-burning hoot. Coppola completely sucks out any of the original's over the top sequences for more art house, painterly images instead. Wise decision. Eastwood's civil war film hasn't aged well, but Coppola saw something intriguing in remaking it as a feminist fable. The last 30 minutes are terrifically entertaining, and basically make the slow build-up of the first hour well worth the wait .... Every female performance in "The Beguiled' is great. Kidman, as the matriarch, is astonishingly subtle, but Kristen Dunst and Elle Fanning standout above the rest. Oh, the angst these two competitive women show in trying to capture this Union soldier's heart, played by Collin Farrell. It's quite amazing how minimalist Coppola's film is, there are so many rampant feminist themes and questions tackled. I'll be watching this again soon, as it's being released on June 30th.