Sofia Coppola has taken us to the neon-drenched cityscapes of Tokyo (Lost In Translation), the monarchy of revolutionary France (Marie Antoinette), and the ennui of Hollywood celebrity (Somewhere). Now she’s headed to the American Civil War for a dark study of Southern airs and graces in The Beguiled. Here’s the first trailer.
Based on the Southern Gothic novel by Thomas P. Cullinan, it’s the prodigiously talented filmmaker’s first film since 2013’s The Bling Ring (if you don’t count the 2015 Netflix Christmas oddity A Very Murray Christmas). Don Siegel directed a version in 1971 with Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page; this 2017 vintage features Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning donning period dress and I-do-declayuh southern accents.
Farrell plays John McBurney, a Union soldier injured during the American Civil War. Near death, he is rescued by a young girl at a strictly conservative all-girls’ boarding school, the snappily-titled Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies, in rural Virginia. McBurney begins to bond with the women in a highly sexually-repressed environment – and quickly this clash of morals takes a dark turn.
Expect southern hospitality to a fault when The Beguiled arrives in cinemas on 23 June.
Read Empire's review of the original version of The Beguiled.